


A Lesson in Morals

by I_Got_Lost



Category: Storm Hawks (Cartoon)
Genre: Actual Origin Story, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background - Freeform, Episode Fix-it, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Growing Up, Just Roll With It, Lore - Freeform, More tags to be added, O/C Sky-Knights, Prequel, Sky-Knight, Sky-Knight Exams, an actual timeline, as always WORLDBUILDING, lots of world building, probably more universe alterations then anything else, this annoyed me enough i actually wrote the damn thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Got_Lost/pseuds/I_Got_Lost
Summary: Aerrow grows up running through trees and jumping off cliffs.  Aerrow is content to live on his terra and stare up into the skies, dreaming of flying and living peacefully, if not happily. Then he turns 13 and he is standing in the ruins of a legacy that started a war, and does he not care. This is a boy who shows up at the sky-knight exams and passes because once you have learned about the worst of the world, everything else is so much easier to bear.This is the story of the lessons you learn as you become a sky-knight.This is a story about learning how to be so much more then what the world wants you to be and so different then what everyone expects you to be.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	1. The World is Harsh but You Do Not Have to Be

**Author's Note:**

> Before I say anything else, I have to first give credit to Hazardofacat, Prancingpony, and Pix, who had been good sports about me ranting and shouting about the lore of this show (or the lack there of) and have been willing to wiki and google information for me whenever I needed extra hands and eyes. So thank you my dudes, and also, this whole thing is all your fault.  
> So, my dear readers,  
> It should first be noted that this whole fic will be a complete overhaul of cannon and the general timeline. I'm attempting to stick to the cannon as much as possible but most of the time I'm just gonna bowl right over it screaming 'AU FOREVER'.  
> Also, I had not known Aerrow and Co were only 14. so, that was disturbing to know.  
> But yes, this fic has been bothering me for years and I finally threw it down onto paper. And now, you all have to be stuck with it too.  
> AHAHAHAHAHAHA  
> Anyway, as always, have fun, enjoy, and don't shoot me!

Aerrow is four years old and standing in the middle of the Terra Cliffside Market the first time he realizes growing up in a house with fifteen other children and a handful of harried adults is not normal. There is a little girl holding onto her mother’s hands and the look of pity on the woman’s face is enough to make Aerrow go running back to Miss Helen and pepper her with questions. Incidentally, this is also the day that he realizes the word orphan means instant pity from other citizens on the Terra. On this day, he learns that ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are not the same as Carers.

It is not for another few years that he learns ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are the people who created you. For now, his understanding is limited to the fact he has three mothers, and one father who appears every Friday like clockwork to restock the pantry and fridge.

He also learns that night that calling Miss Helen, mother, will get him stuck on dishwasher duty for a month. In the span of twenty-four hours, Aerrow learns that he does not, in fact, have a mother or father, but he does have a house full of playmates, a bed to sleep in, and food three times a day.

He does not understand why being an orphan is a problem.

(Aerrow has never known anything different.)

…***…

Aerrow is six years old, his playmates have changed again and again. The children who helped to teach him to walk have long since been adopted. The children who taught him to speak have since moved out. Recently, Aerrow has started to keep a tally. Hunter has been adopted. Kyle ran away. Sarah moved out. Lisa joined the crystal mine crew, and Daisy-May appeared on the door step one day without warning.

Aerrow is six years old. He has two meals a day, the corner of the roof leaks in the dormitories, and the pantry is restocked every other Friday. Life is good. (He does not see the rising bills and the lack of funds. He does not see how the soups are watered down and the portions become smaller. All he sees is garunteed food, warm beds, and well-loved toys.) When the sun rises, Aerrow is let outside and he does not totter back into the Cliffside House until the bell rings for dinner.

Outside of the orphanage is a wealth of ponds, cliffs, and trees. Aerrow spends all of his days spinning and dancing through the leaves. As he grows up and his roaming range expands, he moves from climbing trees to climbing cliffs. From there, it does not take much for Aerrow to fling himself from the ledges of cliffs without any care in the world. He does not realize that falling from Deadman’s Corner would leave his body a mess of blood and bone, splattered across the rocks. No more than he realizes running the edge of the terra could mean a deadly fall into the Waste.

(Outside of the Cliffside terra, there are Talons, Cyclonis, and civil wars that bleed into the lifeblood of every terra around them. It is not that the Carers of the orphanage do not care of their charges, it is simply that since the Fall, it is all orphanages and places left on the borders can do to keep their crystals shinning and food on the table. One child coming back bruised and battered but happy, is not enough of a concern for the Carers to wonder what Aerrow had been doing.)

Aerrow grows up dancing through the trees and jumping off cliffs. And Aerrow doesn’t realize that most children do not leap into the air and trust that the winds will catch them. He is six years old and already he yearns for the ability to fly.

…***…

On the eve of his seventh birthday, Aerrow asks for a set of wings. Miss Helen, a tough but fair woman, arranges for Aerrow to go and be allowed on the Cliffside transports for the day instead. She does not bother to tell the boy that humans cannot wear wings, not when it is a common practice for sky-knights to strap metal gliders to their backs and leap into the air. No, she does not tell this boy, this boy with green eyes that remind her too much of leaves drifting through the winds, that he cannot fly. Instead, she drops Aerrow off at the dry dock six o’clock sharp and returns for him after sunset. Aerrow spends the entire time with his face smashed against the glass of the transport and a smile so wide his cheeks hurt for days afterwards.

It is the best day he has ever had.

The fact Miss Helen refuses to allow him to go back is devastating.

What he does not know is this: the captain of the transport offers Miss Helen enough coin to keep the orphanage running for five months if she would sell Aerrow to the crew. Since the Fall nearly eight years before, the need for capable mechanics, runners, and general laborers had reached an all-time high. Aerrow, with his fearlessness, adaptability, and sheer stubbornness, is any crew’s dream. The fact he is young enough to train, quick enough to keep up, and fast enough to climb the ranks is almost a secondary consideration.

Out on the borders, there is no legal binding, no authority to maintain Sky-Law. The Fall had all but destroyed all the growth of the past four generations and it is children like Aerrow who pay the price. Out here, it is common for children to be passed between crews, slowly gaining a debt that before too long is too large to ever be paid off in one lifetime.

Aerrow is seven years old and he is saved from slavery simply because Miss Helen is a harsh woman with fixed morals. What keeps him safe in the following weeks while the captain tries to bargain for Aerrow is that Aerrow flings himself from cliffs and splashes through ponds too often for him to be tracked through the forest. He is safe because he is too naive and too wild to see the danger he is in. And, Miss Helen has never been happier to honestly admit she does not know where Aerrow is throughout the day.

The captain only gives up when it becomes clear that Miss Helen will not sell the boy and that she is willing to take Aerrow to the next Kingdom over and contract a sky-knight for protection. He leaves without saying a word to anyone, but the legend around Miss Helen and Aerrow grows. From here on out, Miss Helen is known as a woman never to be crossed and Aerrow becomes an object of curiosity. A boy who cannot be sold, with abilities that most crews would kill for.

Aerrow will never know, but as long as he resides in Cliffhouse, Miss Helen will not allow him to be bought or sold. Her wards are to remain free and this policy never changes.

And so, time marches on.

…***…

This far into the boundaries, education is largely left to the discretion of the terra. School is not mandatory across Atmos simply because there is no centralized institution to enforce such a mandate. With communication between terras left largely to merchants, sky-knights, and whoever happens to be heading the right direction, a structured and formal government is mostly a dream for the border terras. It is with grudging acceptance and frustration of all citizens that a formal education is a luxury left to the capitals and anyone old enough to remember pre-Fall.

Miss Helen is a learned woman and she does her best to impart her knowledge, but she is no teacher. She does not have the patience for it, not with fifteen children, dozens of bills, and a dwindling supply of funding. Miss Helen tries, but the children are mostly left to their own devices. Besides, what need of a formal education is there on the borders?

Aerrow is ten. He knows which bunk is his because of the arrow cut into the wooden frame. Like all the children younger than eleven, his name corresponds to an object. He is aerrow and an arrow is him. Aerrow considers himself lucky, at least he is not Duck.

Aerrow can do simple sums, divide, multiply, and can identify words such as: food, Cliffside, exit, help, money, and Sky-knight. He knows his history as well as the next person. The Schism, better known as the creation of the terras, occurred 500 years ago. The terras then banded together to create kingdoms, and the sky-knights were created to patrol the borders. Then the Talons happened, and the wars, and the Fall. To Aerrow, these are bedtime stories or warnings given as a reminder to eat his greens and be in bed before dark. History is something from a story and Aerrow does not care to learn more.

So, instead of a formal education, Aerrow learns to repair roofs, fix machines, general first aid, and how to tell the truth from a lie. In the woods he learns what is edible and what is deadly. He learns that a pitfall is just as useful as a rope in trapping his next meal, (the pantry of the Cliffhouse has never been as well stocked with fresh meat as it has with Aerrow’s prizes in the woods) and he learns that trickery and cunning will only work if he is subtle. In the town he learns that punches and well placed kicks are just as useful as a politely asked question, and from his fellow orphans, he learns that the world is harsh and it does not care.

This is something that sticks with him for a long time.

…***…

Aerrow is ten years old, he reads a map made up of lines and roughly sketched buildings, and he holds a paper allowing him to pick up the newest occupant of Cliffhouse Orphanage. It is the first time he is allowed to go back to the docks and his childish awe of the place has not died in the past three years.

Aerrow is ten years old and the port master does not blink at his appearance. Not when there are entire crews made up of child workers and adult captains. So, instead, Aerrow is pointed towards the only other child at the docks with a quick gesture and a roll of his eyes.

Aerrow walks up to the boy and for a moment, simply stares at the pitiful little ball the boy has curled up into. The other boy is sullen, a face made up of harsh lines, angry eyes, and bright blond hair.

Aerrow has always been an orphan. He does not know what it means to have a mother's love or the pride of a father. He does not understand the shame in being alone. Aerrow is ten years old, has the wind in his ears and the sky reflected in his eyes. He does not understand the silence and the anger the other children carry like weights in their pockets.

Aerrow offers a hand and a grin. To him, the boy is just another playmate, nothing more and nothing less. He does not expect the other boy to slap his hand away and glare up at him in silence. Aerrow, in a word, is not an idle boy. He has been cliff jumping and tree hopping since he could walk. He doesn’t understand the need to sit still and simply be. However, he is compassionate. And that day on the docks, staring down at a blond boy with bared teeth, gaunt cheeks, and anger sparking in his eyes, Aerrow plunks himself down onto the ground, rests his head back against the crate, and looks up to the clouds.

“I'm Aerrow.” He says, his fingers tapping on his legs and his foot bouncing. Even now, he cannot stay still. “Who're you?”

The boy doesn’t respond. Aerrow doesn’t mind. He’s one of the older kids now. It’s his job to mind the littles and wait out the tantrums of the kids. Aerrow is ten, he’s old enough to wait.

“You're gonna love it here! We've got cliffs and ponds and trees and you're gonna get your own bed, all to yourself!” Aerrow confides, happy that he can at least impart a bit of his luxury to another. (for all he says about waiting, the boy is not very patient.)

The boy shoves himself up to his feet. “Go away!” he screams. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I want to go home!”

And Aerrow, old enough now to know that home means parents and parents means family, cocks his head to the side. He is not a malicious child. He means no harm, but he does not yet know one can have a home, but no family to return to.

“Well, where are they then?” Aerrow asks innocently. “I can help you look for them if you want?”

It is only midafternoon after all, and Awrrow is not expected back until dinner. He has the time. And it is entirely possible Aerrow has been directed to the wrong child. It has happened before. Sometimes children get sent to Cliffhouse and their guardians appear a week later, frantic and worried.

Aerrow does not see the punch until he is flat on his back and staring up at the other boy's furious gaze. “They're dead!” the boy hisses, already cocking his fist back for another blow. “They're dead and they're never coming back.”

Aerrow is ten. He is old enough to understand that death means gone. Gone forever. He is old enough to know that he is alive, while his parents are dead. Yet, Aerrow is a child, no matter how many duties he shoulders for the Carers or how many littles he comforts. Aerrow is a child, and he is young enough, naïve enough, to not understand why death is bad.

Aerrow has grown up in an orphanage that some days seemed to have a revolving door. Children and Carers bounced in and out so often that it seemed the only thing that never changed was the leaking roof, Miss Helen, and Aerrow himself. Aerrow is ten and all he knows about death is that it meant new playmates in the orphanage and tears until the kid settled in.

But for now, his eye hurts, his sight is blurry, and he stares up at the boy in puzzlement. Typically, when a new child appeared, Miss Helen apologized. No one would ever explain what she was apologizing _for_ , but Aerrow figured it was important.

“I'm sorry.” Aerrow says, not really sorry at all, but he is nothing if not polite. And because he does not know what else to say, he gives the boy a grin and offers the only thing he can think of to make the boy happy. “Do you want to go jump off Deadman's Corner with me? I promise it'll be fun!”

And the boy, who had been staring down at Aerrow with one fist cocked, is so startled (so tired) he does not argue when Aerrow shoves himself up to his feet and hauls the boy after him with little regard for the situation. Aerrow, who has never been told cliff jumping is bad, or that not telling anyone where he is going is dangerous, does not see the spark rekindling in the other boy's eyes.

The boy looks over at Aerrow and realizes that here is a boy who does not care for the rules. Here is a boy who climbs through Terra Cliffside as if the terra owes him. Here is a boy who starts running and does not let go of his new playmate's hand when he flings them over a cliff even sky-knights would balk at. Here is a boy who has never been told the definition of safety and danger.

_Here is a boy who does not care for pain or death._

And as they surface from the river at the bottom of Deadman's Corner, the boy looks at Aerrow and falls a tiny bit in love. This is a boy he would follow. This is a boy who does not care that he is an orphan. This is a boy who does not follow the rules.

(Aerrow, in the biggest sense of cosmic irony, does not know there are any rules to be broken. Aerrow is a child, with a child’s dreams and ambitions, who is he to know what is acceptable or not? Who is he to know what is impossible?)

The two boys haul themselves onto the river bank. They are wet, cold, muddy, and absolutely delighted. Aerrow is grinning up at the clouds, his eyes are reflecting the sky and the wind echoes in his ears. The other boy leans forward. He is not happy. He does not know if he can be happy again, not without his mum and dad, but the gloom and the shades of the last few weeks don’t seem as close when Aerrow sits beside him. He sticks out a hand. “Finn. My name's Finn.”

…***…

Finn sticks himself to Aerrow's side and Miss Helen does not care what the boys do as long as they stay out of the kitchen and out of her hair. Finn, Aerrow finds, has an uncanny ability to pelt the fox-squirrels with rocks at 500 yards and can launch the best mud balls off the cliffs into the baskets Aerrow has rigged up to be point scores. But, if Finn were to try and aim anything under 20 feet, the whole target would be demolished. Aerrow learns not to question it, not when his new friend is as bright as sunshine and almost as quick as Aerrow.

Finn brings to Cliffside, new stories, new ideas for pranks, and a personality that is all too happy to cheer Aerrow's adrenaline runs into new heights. He does not temper Aerrow's rash decisions but from him, Aerrow learns something that slips into his subconscious and tightens fingers around his throat.

What Awrrow learns is this: just because the world is cruel, does not mean you have to be.

…***…

Time marches on. Aerrow and Finn turn eleven. Miss Helen does not tell them, but she despairs over these two boys ever finding a family. Aerrow with his sky-bright eyes and Finn with his sharp mouth. Miss Helen has had Aerrow since she was an intern, a young lady attempting to figure out her career path. Then the Fall happened and her internship turned into a job.

Aerrow was so small, so fragile, she had been afraid to hold him when the baby had appeared at the door. And while Miss Helen is the last one to scream conspiracy, even she must admit it is odd that every family who stepped forward to adopt the boy, never returned to finish the forms. (She will not scream conspiracy but she will shelter the boy as much as she can. It is the only thing she can do.) As head of Cliffhouse, Miss Helen could never formally adopt any of the children, but Aerrow. Aerrow might as well as been hers through birth and blood. And it hurts, it hurts to see this boy grow with the whispers of Terra Cliffside echoing in his wake.

If Miss Helen were anyone else, she might have found it amusing this boy has become a terra legend. A wild untamable thing that scares little children into eating their dinner least he swoop in and steal them away to Deadman's Corner. Instead, she closes her eyes and pretends she does not see the legend of her boy growing. (Here is the thing about heroes, Miss Helen thinks as she watches Aerrow pelt Finn with mudpies, they don’t often get happy endings.)

Miss Helen can do little more than sooth scrapes and check for dirt hiding behind ears. She cannot change the world and she cannot make the world any less hostile to her boys. She cannot change anything.

What she does not know, is that she does not have to change the world for her boys. She is harsh, but fair. In Cliffhouse, her word is law, and Aerrow has grown up under her tutelage since he was six months old. Miss Helen does not teach him to read, but she teaches him about the world. She teaches him about responsibility, oaths, and justice. She teaches him that you are nothing without morals and even a bad man might change if given due cause.

Aerrow had taught himself that just because the world is harsh, he doesn’t have to be. But it is Miss Helen who raises him to understand that the first person he must protect, is himself.

…***…

Terra Cliffside is dwindling. The edges of the terra crumble and sink into the waste so often that even Aerrow has pulled himself back from the brink and scuttled into the inner sanctuary of the Terra. The fact Aerrow has moved back into the land of Cliffhouse, is not missed by Miss Helen. She may not know what Aerrow does during his free time, but she can guess. And if even he has deemed the terra too dangerous, Miss Helen realizes she needs to look to safer habours.

Yet, there are still the children to think about. And Miss Helen, already stretched to her limit in both funds and safety, is alerted to the arrival of one more child. Unlike in years past, Cliffhouse is below occupancy. There are more beds then children, and Miss Helen is intent on keeping it that way. Food is now only delivered once every three weeks and what used to be a steady rotation of Carers has dwindled down to Miss Helen and Sister Josie. Miss Helen is not in a position to say no to one more child but she is not in a stable enough place to say yes, either. Miss Helen sends back her acknowledgment of the pending arrival.

The girl shows up on the doorstep the next day.

This time, Aerrow does not go to pick up the new ward. She arrives on her own and Aerrow watches in confusion from the window. By far, she is the oddest looking child Aerrow has ever seen, and he’s seen _wallop_ toddlers. She has vibrant blue hair that is tucked into a braid Aerrow wishes he could make on his traps in the woods, a long grey dress that, while is obviously well worn, is of better make then Aerrow has ever seen in his life. Those are not the sticking point though, what makes her odd is the fact she has luggage. No Cliffhouse child has luggage. Children of means, that is to say, children who had families financially stable, are shipped to the kingdoms and offered back into the wealth of the paved streets and educated folk.

Children who come to Cliffhouse have little more than the clothes on their back and maybe a toy in their pockets. Everything else they might have had before they were orphaned is sold off to pay for the ticket to Cliffhouse or for the funeral of the family. Before this girl, Aerrow had never seen a child with luggage, he had thought that was a luxury only adults could have.

Finn joins Aerrow at the window and they spend a few seconds in silence. Neither of them know what this girl might be, and in true Cliffside fashion, they put it down to a bet. Aerrow bets on her being a runaway. Finn bets on her being a princess, her dress is pretty enough after all. Either way, they do not see her remaining at Cliffhouse, not with the promise of wealth she has just in her demeanor alone.

The girl looks up. Her skin is dark compared to Aerrow's pale tones, and Aerrow doesn’t know what to say when she narrows her eyes at him and flings her head to the side in disgust.

“Ouch man.” Finn whispers from his own perch. “Instant dislike.”

Aerrow only shrugs. He’s got chores to finish, trees to run through, and games to play. What does he care of arrogant girls and wealthy children?

Only, in the next few days, the girl is everywhere Aerrow turns. He goes to the woods, and the girl is staring at him from between the trees. He goes to jump the only cliffs left, and the girl is free climbing her way up the rock face. Aerrow cannot get away from her and the more he sees her, the angrier he gets. It’s not that he isn’t willing to talk to her, or even include her in his games. Finn seems taken with her and that is all the approval Awrrow needs. But the girl, every time she sees him, sticks her nose in the air and scampers off. To Aerrow, it is almost as if she thinks he is something dirty to be ignored.

It comes to a head three weeks later. Miss Helen asks him to bring the girl down for dinner and Aerrow, knowing full well no one would eat until all the children were at the table, accepts the order with little grace.

He slams into her room (Her room. She got her own _room_. Aerrow has been there the longest and he is still in a cramped little bunk with a worn arrow filed into the side, sleeping beside four other children) and doesn’t bother to look at what has the girl so engrossed she is late for dinner.

“Food. Now. Downstairs.” He barks.

The girl doesn’t look up from where she is folded over some glowing rocks and a piece of paper. “Not hungry.” She snaps, her eyes flashing in the soft light of the room. “Just send some food up later.”

Maybe if Aerrow had been anyone else, he would have recognized the grief in her voice and the tension in her shoulders. But he isn’t, and Aerrow who is hungry and tired, glares and promptly loses his temper. “Well, I'm sorry princess, but if you don’t eat, we can’t eat. And there is nothing more important having dinner!”

(There is nothing more important to a growing boy, than dinner. And Aerrow, who only gets one full meal a day, does not make it a habit to be late to dinner.)

The girl slams her hand down on the floor and spins in place, not seeming to realize how her legs become tangled in her skirts. “I'm busy!” she shouts, and Aerrow, for the first time, sees the glazed over eyes and the shadows in her face. “I'm busy. And I’m going to finish this and I’m going to prove that I can bring them back!”

And Aerrow, who has never broken the golden rule of Cliffhouse, (asking why you are here) looks to the glowing rocks he now recognizes as crystals, blinks at the girls tattered skirts, and wonders why girls are so complicated. (Finn, he had just taken cliff jumping. He let the boy punch him and then Aerrow threw him off a cliff. It was the perfect way to make a friendship!) And then he looks back to the crystals, remembers some of the older children going to work in the mines, promptly says some choice words Miss Helen would smack him for, and darts forward to haul the girl back.

In his haste to move the girl, the crystals clack together and the next few moment blur into a field of white, pain, and noise.

…***…

Aerrow wakes up to a girl sobbing and Miss Helen running a hand through his hair. The world is blurry, he has the taste of ash and dust in his mouth, and for some odd reason, his hands and back hurt.

“Don’t move, Aerrow.” Miss Helen orders when she realizes Aerrow is awake enough to try and sit up. “You got caught in a crystal backlash and landed pretty hard. The doctor is going to come round later to check nothing went too wrong.”

The girl cries harder.

“And you, Miss Piper, don’t you have something to say?” Miss Helen barks, the lines around her mouth jagged and harsh. “I'm waiting young lady!”

Aerrow rolls his head enough to make out the disturbing image of the blue haired girl curled up on a seat next to his bed. It’s funny, he thinks in a daze, that for the three weeks she has lived in Cliffhouse, Aerrow has somehow never committed her name to memory. Still, Piper is sobbing and Aerrow is positive he is not injured enough for him to be dying. Nor does he remember her having anything to do with his pounding head and aching limbs.

For a long moment, Aerrow watches as Piper shudders and shakes under Miss Helen’s glare. Distantly, Aerrow can sympathize with Piper, but he is more thankful that it is not him under scrutiny. As the silence drags on, Aerrow slowly becomes convinced that Piper wasn’t going to say anything. Then he'd have to sit there and listen to Miss Helen go off on a rather long lecture, and that is never anything someone wants to sit through. But then Piper stops crying.

For the first time since she had arrived, she looked cowed and small.

(Aerrow wasn’t sure he liked that.)

“I’m sorry Aerrow. I didn’t mean to…” She starts, her voice small and nothing like the few snarls and barks she had tossed him over the past few weeks.

Before she can get much further, something crashed outside of the door and Miss Helen is up in a flash, hurtling towards the noise with thunder in her face and step. Aerrow wasn’t too sad to see her go, not when it looked like he was going to get a talking to, sooner rather than later.

Piper hesitates for a long moment before hanging her head a little lower. “I didn’t mean to blow you up.”

Still fuzzy on whole reason behind him being not only confined to bed, but feeling as if he had done a jump wrong of Deadman's Corner, Aerrow does little more than nod. He vaguely remembers climbing up the stairs to the dormitories, and there is something about colours? Aerrow shifts in place. This is important. He knows it’s important. There is something like anger snarling in the back of his throat and confusion curling into his ribs. This is important.

_This is important._

The girl leans forward over the edge of the bed, a crumpled piece of paper in her hands and an embarrassed blush working across her cheeks. “Read this,” she says, thrusting the paper forward, “if you have to deal with crystals again, at least next time maybe you won’t knock over the wrong one.”

And Aerrow, still flat on his back, grabs at the paper and brings the paper closer to his face with a squint. He doesn’t know what he's expecting. Pictures? Diagrams? Something that is simple and easy to understand? This isn't any of those things. This, he decides as he flips the paper over and around in the hope something will become understandable, makes no sense. This is just a pile of scribbles.

“I can’t read this.” Aerrow says as he shoves the paper back into Piper's hands.

Piper's face goes white and the paper drops out of her hands as she turns on her heels and practically sprints out the door, screaming for Miss Helen. Aerrow blinks after her in confusion.

He hadn’t meant to be rude.

Miss Helen is going to have him on spinney spud duty for weeks. He just knows it.

A moment or two later, Piper comes in dragging Miss Helen behind her. “I hadn’t meant it!” she babbles, somehow missing the frustration mounting on Miss Helen's face. “I hadn’t meant to hurt him. But Miss, something is wrong! I think he fell harder than we thought! Miss, Miss, Misss….” She trails off into hiccups.

Aerrow does his best impression of a throw pillow and hopes Miss Helen doesn’t turn her ire onto him.

“Miss Helen!” Piper eventually manages to wail. “He can’t read anymore!”

If Aerrow could manage to sink through the floor, he would have. Miss Helen seems to be caught between amusement and annoyance and Aerrow doesn’t breathe until she has let out a sigh and all but dragged the girl out by her ear.

Sleep, after all that, is a long time coming.

…***…

The next few days, Aerrow is confined to the house and it only takes three hours on the first day before Miss Helen is driven to such lengths that she orders Finn and Piper to entertain Aerrow while she gets some work done.

Piper for the first few hours, spends her time looking between Aerrow and Finn with the most confused look either boy had ever seen. Aerrow, no longer bound flat on his back, is still bound to the room. This in itself wouldn’t have been too terrible, not with Finn being stuck with him, but he takes to Piper’s staring about as well as any one else would. Which is to say, not at all.

“Take a holo,” Aerrow snaps when Finn's dramatic tall tales finally come to an end, the boy having fallen asleep at the foot of Aerrow's bunk, “it'll last longer.”

In response, Piper ducks her head into her hands. “I can’t believe you can’t read!”

Aerrow blinks. “You're still caught up on that?” he hisses, careful not to jostle Finn. “Its not that unusual. Only the rich folk on the bigger terras have the money or time to read. If we're really good, Miss Helen sometimes let’s us watch cartoon reels from Atmosia. So, it’s not like we're missing out on anything.”

Piper looks up and Aerrow has the distinct pleasure of watching her gape like a fish. “Not missing out on anything?” she nearly screeches in what Aerrow thinks might be outrage. “What about stories? Or science? Or your schooling? What about letters or books? How do you even write?”

In the face of this bombardment, Aerrow can do little more then stare. He's a Cliffhouse Cliffside orphan. His entire life has been mapped out. Either he joins the mine crews and works until he has enough coin to buy a ticket or settle down with someone else on the terra. Or he signs on with a transport crew and travels through the skies. Reading isn’t necessary for either job and Aerrow doesn’t know anyone who can read aside from Miss Helen, the terra doctor, or the Post Master, and he tends to read the notices and letters sent to either a citizen or the terra, aloud. However, from the look on Piper's face, Aerrow isn’t sure these excuses and explanations are going to fly.

So, he answers the only thing he can. “I don't write.”

(He doesn’t say, _who would I write too?_ )

Piper makes a sound Aerrow thought only tea kettles could make. “But how do you go to school?”

“I don’t.” Aerrow says, one eyebrow rising as he looks Piper over. She’s been with them for three, almost four weeks. He thought she knew there was no schooling at Cliffhouse, aside from self study and simple sums. “I can count and add. I’m good at my maths, and I might apply for an apprenticeship out on the docks in a year.”

Piper shakes her head. “Doesn't Miss Helen make you go to school? Why would you skip class?”

At this point, Aerrow is starting to become concerned she might have hit her head in the crystal incident. “Piper,” Aerrow says gently, “we're in the borders. There’s no school here unless you get a good Master in your trade.”

Aerrow awkwardly pats at her folded hands when it seems Piper is going to do little more then blink at him. He doesn’t know how to read the expression on her face or what to do when tears well up in the corners of her eyes. Finn is no help when Aerrow shoots him a look, the other boy still asleep at the foot of the bed. But, looking at Finn gives Aerrow an idea, and with a pained smile, Aerrow shimmies against the wall and offers Piper a blanket.

The three of them are much too big to be sharing a bunk, but Piper looks too pale for her usual dark tones and Aerrow is in no shape to move himself across the room or to kick Finn out of the bed. Thankfully, Piper doesn’t seem to need an explanation of what Aerrow is offering because she slides into the bed quickly. Only, instead of curling into a ball and falling asleep like Aerrow had expected, the girl lays as stiff as a board.

“I thought you were on summer break.” Piper whispers after a moment of silence. “I hadn’t realized there was no school here at all.”

Aerrow, too tired and too achy to think her confession through, snuggles further into his pillow and let’s out a raspy “well, of school is that important to you, why don’t you teach?” before dropping off into slumber.

He wakes up the next day to Piper shoving a dictionary under his and Finn's nose. It isn’t what she learned with, Piper explains as she digs out two slates and a few pieces of chalk, but it will have to do. Finn and Aerrow exchange bemused looks but by this point, they know better then to argue with a Piper on a warpath. The lessons aren’t easy and they all get frustrated at each other more then once, but slowly, the two boys learn to read an write.

It is only a few days into this project, that Piper realizes boy boys sign their names with an X. Horrified, she drags the dictionary out of Finn's curious grasp, and begins to tear through the pages looking for either of their names. This is important. She wants them to see their names. To see what they are in ink and on paper. She wants them to know if anyone is writing about them. She wants them to know who they are.

She finds Aerrow first.

Aerrow, wrist deep in chalk and carefully tracing out the alphabet one more time, does not see her horrified look. Piper, who sees the word _arrow_ , does not find a lovely description of her new friend. Instead she finds the words: weapon, sharp, _dangerous._ She reads this description and then rereads it again. It is cruel, she thinks, that this boy is reduced to nothing more then pain and misery. That this boy is reduced to a weapon used by another and thrown away after one shot.

She looks up at this red haired boy who saved her from becoming an ugly smear on the wall of Cliffhouse, and thinks, _he can never know._ He is not a _weapon_. He is a _person_.

He is a person.

And Piper, in a fit of anger against the universe, leans forward and writes out on a slate the word _Aerrow_. She is eleven years old and in her mind, changing Aerrow's name to something that has no definition, no fixed fate, is the only thing she can do to repay this boy who had nothing but keep her safe. In the same way she is not the pipes of the house, Aerrow is not the arrow that strikes down prey.

Aerrow, who has no reason to doubt Piper, trusts her when she turns the slate around and shows him his name. He looks at, never once thinking of his name as a weapon, and smiles as the loops and swirls Piper adds to his name.

(Aerrow, who grew up with Miss Helen holding him on the nights he couldn’t sleep and telling him stories about arrows that point the way out of darkness and leading navigators across the sky, is happy. Unlike Piper who sees the name as a weapon, Aerrow sees the word as a tool. For Aerrow, if there is any fate attached to his name, it is simply that he will guide and he will lead.)

Piper does not bother to look up Finn's name. She knows how to spell the word and she knows what a fin is. But, she has already committed one blasphemy against the world of language, what is one more?

She adds an extra letter.

Finn and Aerrow look down at the slate where she has scrawled their names and the two of them are silent. Those are their names. Those are theirs. For orphans, for Cliffhouse orphans, the fact there is something that will be theirs even if they are shipped off to another terra, is shock inducing.

Aerrow, who has traced his arrow in the bedframe every night, is amazed he is lucky enough to have not just one symbol for his name, but a whole word!

He must be the luckiest boy alive.

…***…

The next year passes quickly. Aerrow and Finn sit in the shelter of the dormitories in the afternoons as Piper shoves literacy, mathematics, science, and basic crystal magery down their throats. In return, Aerrow and Finn teach her to break out of the shell and rigidness her family had enforced before their deaths.

Soon, Piper can keep up and sometimes outstrip the boys in their games. She never loses her need to learn or her quest to devour the uses and knowledge of as many crystals as she can. But the moment Aerrow is let loose back into the terra, she swept away the ashes of the explosion as best she could. Aerrow never asks what she was trying to do with the crystals and Piper never bothers to explain.

Finn remains blissfully unaware.

They all turn twelve without incident, but a week after Aerrow’s birthday, the Cyclonian border expands.

This marks the beginning of the end. They just don't know it yet.


	2. You can live for the dead, or you can die with them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *stares down at chapter*  
> well, that got dark quick. sorry.  
> Anyway, uh, warnings?  
> -fire, lots of fire  
> -bad guy character death  
> -o/c character death
> 
> Anyway, as always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

As every crystal mage will tell you, it is not the crystals that are dangerous. Crystals, as a rule; are generally stable. Most crystals are as hard as diamond when shaped correctly and kept energized. It is only because of how stable crystals are that they were peppered into every facet of life across Atmos. Crystals are not dangerous. With the right application, a crystal can heal wounds, power sky-ships, cook food, cast light in pitch black, and entertain.

A crystal mage good at their job could pull miracles from nothing more then dusty pockets and a handful of sparks.

However, those same hands that could yank miracles out of the fabric of the universe and through the dust of crystals long dead, also have the same ability to destroy. The same crystal that is often used by children as a bedside light is also the main component in a hellfire crystal bomb.

A Hellfire Crystal Bomb was a nasty invention created first in the depths of Cyclonia. Originally, the spliced crystals were meant to be used as a way to burn through solid rock and reach the crystal pockets in the depths of the Wastes. But one enterprising Talon later and the Hellfire Crystal Bomb was being used to burn through sky-ships and squadrons alike.

The main signature of a Hellfire bomb is the fact it will burn through anything. The more crystals spliced into the bomb, the faster and hotter the fire would burn. The second signature of the Hellfire bomb was the pattern of the flames. When dropped, the flames will always spiral outwards in a clockwise pattern, even if the wind and environment would otherwise suggest a different path. The third signature was something much more devious; nothing short of a blizzarian crystal would halt a Hellfire bomb.

After the Fall, Hellfire bombs had been all but banned across the Atmos. Each Sky-knight had access to a sliver of a blizzarian crystal just in case a cyclonian ship appeared and threw a Hellfire bomb onto a terra, but most squadrons had become complacent after ten years without a Hellfire Bomb appearing on anyone’s radar.

Three days after Aerrow turns twelve, Cliffside begins to burn.

At first, the fires had been nothing more then a mild concern. The fires had appeared far enough into the cliff faces that most assumed the fires were more tricks thought up by the Cliffhouse boys or even a possible Wanderer settling into the woods of the terra. Overall, the fires were nothing to be concerned about. Cliffside was known for having abundant access to water and with the rain heavy clouds rumbling around the terra, there was little chance of an out of control blaze.

But then, the fires wouldn’t go out. Water did nothing to quench the flames and after the third day the sky had turned black with smoke, Cliffside had called for a mass evacuation.

The effort made to evacuate Cliffside is admirable. Sky-ships of all kinds swoop down to the burning terra. The neighboring terras round up enough volunteers to help carry both people and livestock to safety. However, this is not a squadron. These are farmers and merchants. These are people who looked to their neighboring terras and scurried to throw sky-worthy transportation into the air.

There are no sky-knights here, not this far into the boundary.

The first few ships make it safely to their destinations.

The rest do not.

…***…

Aerrow is curled up on Deadman’s Corner and staring down into the Wastes. Years ago, this cliff had dropped down into a pond and surveyed a whole forest. Aerrow had spent years jumping from the rocks and flinging himself out into the air. Now, he stares down into the Wastes and he thinks that this cliff is one even he wouldn’t jump off. He can barely see the red of the lava weeping over the Wastes and the shimmers in the air tell him that there is at least a great deal of heat in the Wastes.

The thought almost makes him snort. There is a great deal of heat on Cliffside.

Aerrow stares down into the Wastes and scrubs his hands down his pants absently before flopping down onto his side. There is ash in his hair, ash on his clothes, ash under his nails, and there is more ash falling from the sky. He has never seen snow, but he thinks this must be what it looks like. It must look like ash, like a grey blanket sinking down onto the terra.

Cliffside has been burning for four days and Aerrow is convinced the scent of fire and burning homes will forever hang around his skin and scratch at the back of his throat. He curls into his knees a bit more and bites at his lip when his fingers catch on a knot in his hair. He shouldn’t be this far into the terra, not when the occupants of Cliffhouse had been ordered to the sky-docks for evacuation but Aerrow couldn’t help it.

Aerrow has never in his life been confined in a location without windows or the promise that he will be outside soon. The first two days he had kept to himself and minded the littles alongside Piper as Miss Helen sat beside the radios and attempted to call out to other orphanages. There were eight tenants of Cliffhouse under the age of majority, and the volunteers helping to organize the evacuation of Cliffside had already confirmed there were no beds anywhere on the surrounding terras.

The children would be split across the ships and scattered into the skies.

Aerrow would be sent off alone.

He knew it. He knew he would be sent off alone. Aerrow hadn’t meant to look, but Miss Helen had all their names jotted down on a scrap of paper and the number of beds at different locations and Aerrow was alone. He was the only one to be sent off from the rest. He wasn’t going to the capital with Piper and Finn. Aerrow was being sent off alone to some Terra Classia.

Aerrow hadn’t meant to look at the paper but the moment he read the names and realized what was wrong, he was already running out the door and disappearing into the woods. He hadn’t meant to run all the way to Deadman’s Corner, not with the fires and the ships coming in only a few hours, but he had. And now he had to go back to the sky-docks.

He had to go tell Finn and Piper good-bye.

Aerrow, never one to shy away from the challenges of life, hesitates on the cliff. He is twelve years old and his world is burning in more ways than one. In less than two hours, he will lose everything and everyone he knows.

He doesn’t know if he can do it.

His shoulders shake and the ash falls to the ground in clumps.

He doesn’t want Cliffside to be burning. He doesn’t want to be separated from his friends. He doesn’t want to leave the only home he has ever known. He wants to stay here, at Deadman’s Corner.

He wants to…

The unmistakable sound of gliders hums over the crackling of the fires and Aerrow throws himself behind the only outcrop of rock with an overhang he can see. No one this far out into the border can afford the upkeep of a glider, let alone the amount it would take for Aerrow to be able to hear this far out.

Aerrow pokes his head out from his hiding spot and suddenly wishes he hadn’t. Aerrow might not have been able to read until the past year, but Miss Helen had made damn sure all of her charges could recognize the symbols of Cyclonia and the Talons. This close to the border, it wasn’t Murk Raiders or Sky-Rogues that worried the typical person, it was the Cyclonians.

Aerrow, standing on a burning terra, looks up into the eyes of a red-goggled Talon, and realizes that the fires are no coincidence. It’s a snap-fire realization and Aerrow doesn’t know how he’s made the connection, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. He hears the roar of a hauler and the screech of a sky-ship detaching from the sky-docks and Aerrow knows he’s about to witness something he’ll never forget.

A crystal mage will tell you that crystals are no more dangerous than the intent of the wielder.

Aerrow watches as a series of sky-ships climb up into the clouds. He cannot move. He cannot scream. He cannot blink.

The Talon throws his arm into the air and four more Talon gliders line up beside the first. As one, they pull out a crystal staff and activate the crystals with a well-timed flick of their wrists. A pulse of red shoots out across the sky in a wave and Aerrow shoves a hand in his mouth as he watches the dozens of evacuation ships simultaneously suffer from engine failure.

Aerrow is twelve years old, his terra is burning and in front of him, his people fall as one into the Wastes.

There is no time to deploy parachutes, not that there would be any to hand out. These sky-ships are haulers and carriers, built to deliver livestock and supplies to isolated terras. There would not be enough parachutes to save even a small fraction of the lives on the ships. Besides, even if anyone jumped, there is nothing but the Wastes below.

Aerrow’s knees hit the rock and he keens. His teeth have torn into the skin of his hand and he tastes the copper of his blood. Ash clings to his body and Aerrow shakes as the Talons above cheer and put their hands up in victory.

In less than ten minutes, Aerrow has learned a lesson that every survivor of the Fall nearly twelve years before had carved into their bones. When witnessing the fall of a ship or a sky-knight, do not look to where the ship falls, but to the skies for the faces of the killers. The uniforms of the Talons promote anonymity but Aerrow will never forget that it was the Talon’s that shot down the ships.

He curls up behind the rocks and twice, Aerrow is saved by the cliffs. First because he missed the ships and second because as he breaks down, the Talons fly away without ever realizing there was a witness to their crime hunkering between the stones. Aerrow, too shocked to think any further then _everyone is dead and what do I do?_ stares at the Wastes below.

He’s alone.

 _He is alone_.

This is so much worse than being sent away.

He hadn’t wanted to leave Cliffside, but he hadn’t wanted _this._

His friends, his family, his _people_ , were on those ships. Hes staring down at his people, at everything he has ever known and behind him Cliffside burns. The terra burns and Aerrow doesn’t know what to do. Finn. Piper. Miss Helen. The littles.

Gone. _They're all gone_.

He huddles back against the rocks and stares into the ash covered terra. To the flames flickering beyond the trees, and wonders why he is dead too. He’s got the Wastes behind him, a flame covered Terra in front of him, and by all rights, he should be burning.

He should be burning.

Ash falls from the sky and floats on the winds. Aerrow's clothes are a dusty grey, his skin is paler then it has ever been, and Aerrow wonders if he’s already dead. Is he already dead? Has he just not realized it yet? Everything is crumbling to ash. His whole world is burning. And God, everyone is dead. The Wastes are too far away for him to smell the cremations below but Aerrow looks to the skies and he sees ash. He sees ash and his stomach lurches.

Everyone is burning and everything becomes ash and he is covered. He is absolutely covered in ash. He moves his head and ash falls from his hair. It is under his fingernails, smeared across his skin, and painted across his clothes.

Aerrow leans over the rocks and retches. There is nothing but bile and acid in his stomach and Aerrow shakes. His stomach seems to be trying to turn itself inside out, all he can smell is the fires, and he can’t...

He can’t do this.

His head rests against the rocks and he gags. When nothing more comes up, he scrubs the back of his hand across his mouth and pretends that the taste of bile is better than the coating of ash and dust he had had moments before. He doesn’t look down into the Wastes. There is nothing but ash now.

There is nowhere for him to go. Nowhere for him to run. What does he do? What can he do? How can he…

“Aerrow! You know you aren’t supposed to run off!”

Aerrow's head lifts and he’s running away from the cliffs towards the three figures breaking through the tree line. His heart finally starts beating again, his vision gets fuzzy as his eyes fill with tears, and he slams into Finn and Piper hard enough to knock them to the ground. He's got one arm wrapped around Finn's chest and his nose is tucked into Piper's shoulder. The scent of old books and crystal dust convinces him more than anything that this is real. That they're here.

He shakes on top of his friends, his family, and Aerrow doesn’t stop even when Piper begins to panic and tug at his arm. He can’t lift his head up from her neck to pick apart her words. He can’t focus through the buzzing in his ears and the screams in his head to make out her questions. Aerrow doesn’t know how to say _you were dead_. He doesn’t know how to tell them he needs to feel their heartbeat, to hear them breathe, to know that they still _live._

He doesn’t know how to tell them that for all that he is an orphan, for the first time in his life, he understands loss. His hand sneaks up to cover Finn's heart and Piper's heart beats against his chest.

They’re alive.

 _They're alive_.

Aerrow doesn’t know how they aren’t burning in the Wastes and to be frank, he doesn’t care. His family isn’t in the Wastes and Aerrow will take whatever he can get. But, he doesn’t know how long they'll be alive, not with the Talons still in the air.

Ignoring Piper's shrill chattering, Aerrow hauls himself up to his feet, yanking Finn and Piper up behind him. He doesn’t know what expression is frozen on his face and he doesn’t care his eyes are red and his hand is bleeding. (He can’t know that while the skies reflect in his eyes, there is also a fire that makes Miss Helen think of heroes and legacies. He’ll never know that Miss Helen looks at her boy and doesn’t see Aerrow in that moment, she sees scattered squadrons and a Fall.)

Aerrow, both hands folded into the hands of the only people he considers _family_ , stares up at Miss Helen. He's got a rage boiling in his blood and the screams of a dozen ships echoing in his ears and _he will not let anyone else die today._

The image of cheering Talons and sinking ships repeats behind his eyes and Aerrow holds his little family tighter. Miss Helen, old enough to remember the Fall, takes one look at her boy, and like the lesson engraved on Aerrows bones, looks up into the sky. Aerrow doesn’t need to ask what she is looking for. He watched the sky-ships fall, he can recognize the fear and the hatred spreading across Miss Helen's face now.

“Talons?” Miss Helen states, even as her voice tilts up in question. She’s already tugging the little line of children back into the safety of the trees. (What does it say that this woman considers a burning terra safer than other people? What does it mean that she doesn’t need to be told something has gone horribly wrong?)

“Yes.” Aerrow valiantly does not look back to Deadman's Corner. (Oh, how he understands that name now.)

Miss Helen gives a fierce nod. “How many?”

Aerrow stumbles a bit. (Behind his eyes, five Talons lift a hand and cheer, and two dozen ships spiral does into the Wastes.) The last of Cliffside. The second wave of refugees and volunteers. Aerrow can only hope half the ships were filled with livestock rather than people.

“A squad.” Aerrow says finally. “But there is probably more coming.”

Piper and Finn have fallen silent and Aerrow tugs them closer as Miss Helen halts mid-step. Aerrow, who grew up in Cliffhouse, suddenly remembers the stories Miss Helen had told the children before bed. He remembers the heroes, the monsters, and the victories. He remembers her sad smile whenever a child asked if her stories were true.

Aerrow, who had never listened to his histories or bothered to ask about the world, makes another snap-fire connection. Her stories were true. Miss Helen told stories of sky battles and pre-Fall code. She had passed along the way the world had been before Aerrow had been born.

She had spoken of the Alliance.

Aerrow's heart seizes. A group of five was the minimum requirement for a squadron. A cyclonian squadron always ran in threes. Fifteen Talons had to be circling the terra. And this far into the borders, fifteen Talons needed some form of support. Miss Helen and Aerrow look to the sky at the same time. Movement from the south has them standing still, as if moving would draw the attention of the ship that descended from the clouds.

It is Piper that breaks the silence that has fallen on the group. “The Sky-knights will save us, won’t they?”

Miss Helen doesn’t respond. Aerrow’s hand tightens on Piper's wrist. There is ash falling from the sky, he can see the distant gliders flying towards the ship. Aerrow feels his stomach lurch again. Piper, for all that she has been on Cliffside for little over a year, still misses many of the nuances of living in the boundaries. There are no sky-knights here. There is no code. There is no honour. Aerrow does not need to look over to see Miss Helen choking back a sob. Cliffside falls will fall in an hour.

Aside from the Talons, the only people left on the terra are three children and one adult.

Aerrow closes his eyes, ignores the image of fall sky-ships, and gently begins to lead his family back to Cliffhouse. He will not bow to a Talon, not now and not ever. He cannot kneel to a people who laughed as an entire terra burned and her people plunged into the Wastes below. If he must die, Aerrow will die as he had lived, stubborn and on a land that was wilder then he could have ever hopped to be.

Half an hour later, he halts at the edge of a clearing he had always found solace in before. Cliffside still burns, yet, Cliffhouse remains untouched.

Piper and Finn run to Cliffhouse. Miss Helen moves at a slower rate, but as she passes Aerrow, her hand comes up to trail along his cheek. Aerrow does his best not to flinch away.

(There are Talons laughing.)

Aerrow cannot go inside the building. He can’t. The image of falling sky-ships and laughing Talons stops him at the front door. How can he be grateful to be home when so many others will never get the chance? How can he stand here knowing that he did nothing to stop the violence?

Aerrow sinks down onto the steps and watches the ash float on the winds. How dare he sit here? How dare he be grateful his family was not on those ships?

His shoulders curl inwards and his hand comes up to cover his mouth before he stops. He had known he tore skin earlier; he had not realized how deep he had bitten. Oddly detached, he flexes his hand, somehow feeling surprised at the ache and jolt of pain that dashes up his arm. Distantly, he wonders if it is infected.

He can hear everyone moving around inside Cliffhouse, and he has the sudden thought, that if he just closes his eyes, he might be able to pretend that Cliffside is not burning and the orphanage is filled to the rafters with laughing children and delighted carers. The front door opens. Aerrow hears the porch floor creak.

“You have a choice.” Miss Helen says, her voice raspy but steady. Aerrow expects nothing less, she is not a woman known for her gentleness. If she has something to say, she will say it, politeness is not necessary for honesty. “You can live for them or you can go die with them.”

Behind him, Aerrow can hear Daisy running around the kitchen, hands trailing over the hanging pots and pans. Fern is humming in the dining room, a pile of mending on the table. Hawk is pounding his way up the stairs to the dormitory. Robin is throwing a ball against the wall in a rhythmic thumping.

Piper's footsteps break through the illusion and Aerrow finds himself choking when he hears her say “Miss Helen, we've missed the ships!”

Aerrow drops his head into his hands and weaves his fingers into his hair. His shoulders shake. They don’t know.

_They don’t know._

Behind his eyelids, two dozen ships fall.

…***…

“You will go.” The scariest thing about Miss Helen at the moment is the fact she is completely calm. They have managed to outlast the Talons two days longer then Aerrow had expected. (Considering he had expected to be executed for defiance mere hours after the _incident,_ that is not much of a praise at all.)

Her words are not meant in anger and Aerrow knows she is not giving an order. This is simply a fact. He will go and he will leave her behind.

Aerrow does not care. “No.”

Miss Helen does not bother to look at him, instead she thumps three backpacks onto the table and looks towards the front door. “This is not open for discussion. You will take these and you will go.”

Aerrow is twelve, he can smell the burning crops and the acidic scent of crystal dust. Through the broken window, the flickering light of the burning terra shines and Aerrow does his best to ignore the spreading flames.

There are no ships left and there are Talons shifting through the smoldering remains of Aerrow's life. There is no safety, there is no peace. There is only survival. It is all they have left.

“Aerrow.” Piper hisses as she slides into the kitchen. “We have to leave.”

Aerrow can’t look at her, if he does he'll start to scream. Piper, who until two days ago had braids down to her waist and favored skirts over pants, has her hands wrapped in spare leathers and her short jagged hair bound back by a strip of orange cloth. Her boots are two sizes too big, she has strips of scrap cloth shoved into the boots and the laces tightened to the point of strain. Piper, who had always been impeccably dressed and been on top of the mending, looked worse then a mine crew on a double.

He can’t look at Piper, no more then he can look at Finn. Finn, who even now was up in the perch of the dormitory and stripping the bare rooms down to the studs in the hope of finding hidden caches of food. Finn who has spent days crawling through dust and scouring for water. Finn, whose blond hair will probably never look brighter then a dull grey ever again.

“Come on Aerrow. We have to go.” Piper tugs at his arm and Aerrow digs in his heels.

She still doesn’t know what lays below in the Wastes and in some ways, Aerrow hates her for it.

He can’t leave. Doesn’t she understand? He can’t leave Cliffhouse. This is home. He can’t leave Miss Helen. Aerrow opens his mouth to argue when he finds himself staggering back a step. His arms tighten around the sudden weight dropped onto his chest and it is only reflex that keeps him on his feet.

Miss Helen stares at him. She hasn’t moved from the table. She can’t move from the table. Two days before, when the Talons laughed and the ships fell, the four of them had slipped back out into the night and had darted around the fires towards the neighbouring farm. There had to be food, supplies, a radio, anything.

Instead, there had been Talons.

Aerrow, still hearing the laughter in his ears and the screams in his head, had frozen in the middle of the field. Unfortunately, the Talons had seen him. It was only Piper's quick thinking that had saved him. Piper had thrown herself forward and knocked Aerrow to the ground, making the crystal pulse miss him.

Piper's long braid hadn’t avoided the blast.

Miss Helen and Finn, who had gone to the barn and therefore missed the beginning of the confrontation, appeared behind the talons armed with wrenches and a child sized sling shot.

Aerrow, terrified Piper had been shot and angry that he had frozen, jumped up to his feet and darted forward. The next few moments were oddly blurry in Aerrow’s memory. All he knew for sure was that he had punched, kicked, and grabbed at every staff and limb he could reach to redirect attacks back onto the Talons. Rocks and pebbles were striking Talons in the head and Aerrow only realized how far into the scrum he had fallen when Piper suddenly popped up beside him with two yellow crystals and slammed them together.

The only person not caught in the sudden blast was Piper herself. When the dust clears and the she sees the Talons knocked to the ground, she bolts. Piper does not bother to stick around to see if the Talons still breathe, instead she tucks the crystals into her pockets, ignores her raw hands, and gathers up her little pack of misfits. When she manages to poke and prod Aerrow and Finn awake, Piper heaves a sigh of relief. To find them on the ground and disoriented, had been terrifying. Even more so when she had thought Aerrow was at least inside the shielding stone's protection.

Once the boys are up, it is up to Finn and Aerrow to groggily haul Miss Helen back to Cliffhouse. It is there they find out Piper had taken two electric crystals used to stun livestock and slammed two of the overcharged gems together to paralyze and knock out the Talons. This is when they also discover that the younger the person, the less the gems affect them. Piper excitedly explains that this must be a crystal limit, or even a species reaction. Aerrow and Finn smile at her enthusiasm until they realize one very important detail. Miss Helen had been the oldest one there.

When Miss Helen finally awakes, it is to an awful realization. Piper's crystals had done their job too well. (Later, Aerrow will try and convince the crystal mage that Miss Helen might have also landed wrong or had previous injuries.) Miss Helen can barely feel her own legs. Gone is her balance and her mobility. Gone is her ability to walk, run, dance, and skip.

Gone is her ability to outpace a Talon.

Two days later, Aerrow is left holding a backpack that is too light and staring at the only mother he had ever known. Beside him, Piper hoists her own pack over her shoulder and she places a hand on Aerrow's shoulder in comfort.

(With the smell of ash and singed wood, the scene is oddly reminiscent of the time she had blown up the dormitory. However, Piper was unsure if Aerrow would appreciate the humor the situation.)

Finn slides into the kitchen, the slingshot tucked into his front pocket and his pale face streaked with dirt, dust, and ash. “Dudes, the Talon's are coming up the path.”

Aerrow doesn’t look at him, can’t look at him. He can’t look away from the one constant in his life. “Please.” He begs Miss Helen. “Please.”

Miss Helen gives Piper a look and for some reason, the girl grabs the third backpack, drops down into a low bow, and drags Finn out of the kitchen and through the back door.

Aerrow stretches out a hand. “Please.”

Miss Helen gives him a rueful smile. Aerrow pretends not to see the tears in the corners of her eyes. There is something unsettling, after all, about seeing one’s mother cry.

“You are such a bright boy,” Miss Helen whispers, her hand coming up to cup his cheek, “So bright. You have the sky in your eyes.”

Aerrow doesn’t want this to be the last words he'll ever hear. He's heard too many last words too many times from other children who promised to visit, and potential parents who promised the world.

“Mum,” Aerrow gasps, his tongue tripping over the word, “please.”

“You have a choice,” she whispers, her head nocking gently against his, as she drags him forward into a hug, “you can either live for me…”

Aerrow's hand fists in her wrinkled blouse for a moment, tangling both cloth and flyaway hairs in a way he doesn’t done since he was a toddler. Then after one shuddering breath, he shoves away. Aerrow is twelve years old, he has been minding the littles since he was nine. Miss Helen had spent years pounding into his head that responsibility comes before any personal attachment.

It is in this moment that her training kicks in.

He has two goals sitting outside waiting for him to lead them to safety. He cannot sit here and wait for death to slid across his throat. Miss Helen (mum) is willing to give as much of a head start as she can.

Aerrow would be a fool not to take it.

Aerrow walks backwards out of Cliffhouse, his eyes trained on Miss Helen until he can see her no more. Then he takes in a deep breath, straightens his shoulders, turns, and leads them back to the neighbouring farm. Finn and Piper do not say a word through the whole journey, nor do they ask how they are going to move Miss Helen. Aerrow is unsure if he should be concerned about their lack of conversation, but on the other hand he is glad he doesn’t have to try and speak around the lump in his throat.

In some way Aerrow is glad they don’t say anything. He isn’t sure how to explain that he has a suspicion that there are still some gliders at the farm from the Talon squadron. He isn’t sure how to tell Piper that she may have killed a man. So he says nothing at all. They’ll all find out for sure in a few moments.

Sure enough, when they break the treeline, the farm is just as they left it. Five talons spread out across the dirt and gliders placed strategically around the barn. Behind him, he can hear Piper retching into the wheat. Aerrow can barely bring himself to care. (Two dozen sky-ships, spiraling down to the Wastes. What does it matter that there are five more bodies to join them?)

Aerrow swings up onto the glider and is pleased to see the key is still in the ignition. Beside him, Finn swings up onto another glider. In the seats, the boys are hilariously dwarfed by the machines. Aerrow can barely manipulate the shifts and levers without forcing his body weight onto the stubborn pieces. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that Finn is having a similar problem.

Piper's hands clamp down onto Aerrow's waist and he can feel her tuck her head into his shoulder. In the silence of the day, Aerrow ignores the shaking of her hands and the wet drops spreading across his shoulder. He can deal with this all later, right now he has a job to do.

Getting the glider into gear is surprisingly easy. Taking off into the air is almost simpler. It is a matter of grabbing the release lever, thanking whatever deity might listen that the hinges are well oiled, and pulling back on the controls.

Finn rises up moments after.

Its anticlimactic in some ways, Aerrow realizes as he follows Piper's shaking finger with a shrug. He’s been waiting for years to get up into the skies. He has been throwing himself off cliffs, dancing through trees, and chasing the thrill since he could walk. And now he’s here. He’s flying through the air and it is the second worst day in his life.

Below, the fires on Cliffside burn in the oddest pattern, constantly swirling and twisting as it eats through rock and terra like acid. Aerrow feels Piper suck in a deep breath against his back and his grip tightens on the controls. Cliffside is gone.

In the distance, Aerrow can see the Talon’s sky-ship hovering. Gliders twist out of the docks and Aerrow jerks his glider up further into the clouds. With any luck, the Talons hadn’t seen him or Finn. With any luck, they might get away with it. Piper's hand pops into the side of his vision and he can vaguely hear her shout something about a small terra no more then twenty-five clicks ahead.

Aerrow figures out what Piper is talking about the moment a tiny terra rises out of the clouds like a promise of safety and comfort. Dropping down onto the green grass is easier then trying to climb up into the sky in the first place. Finn’s landing isn’t as graceful but it’s a start.

Piper shakily climbs off the glider and Aerrow cannot move his hands off the controls to reach over and try to comfort the shaking girl.

This is the first time he has ever been on another terra.

“Those! Those idiots!” Piper suddenly yells. Aerrow jolts on the glider, his head snapping over in time to see Piper take her bag off her shoulder and throw the whole thing at the only tree on the hill. “They used a Hellfire.”

“How about you speak in common, for those of us normal folk.” Finn drawls. His voice falls just shy of being obnoxious. Aerrow can hear the tremor in his words but Aerrow appreciates the attempt at normalcy all the same.

Piper scrubs a hand down her face and Aerrow’s stomach lurches at the sight of the ash smearing across her cheeks. There is something haunting the corners of Piper’s face and ice slips down Aerrow’s back. He doesn’t know what a Hellfire is or why Piper looks like she is about to cry, but her expression kicks him into gear.

(Maybe, just maybe, if he keeps moving, then nothing bad can keep happening.)

“Enough.” Aerrow croaks, the ash still clogging his throat. (It is only the ash in his throat and eyes that makes him choke and tear up. It is only the ash…) “We need a shelter, food, and defences.”

“And where are we going to get that?” Piper hisses, her hands tightening into fists by her sides. “Everything burned.”

Aerrow looks down to the gauge of the glider, sees a nearly full energy core, and looks back up to Piper. There are not many things Aerrow is not willing to do for his people. (Before, before Cliffside burned, Aerrow had spent many a night crawling through the docks and the mines. Miss Helen never knew but the ‘discounts’ Cliffhouse received was Aerrow’s coin being spent to offset the costs. Coin could be earned everywhere if one was willing to keep their head down and their mouths shut.)

Aerrow looks down to the Wastes. He’s got a glider able to haul scrap and a restless energy rushing through his veins. (He’s always been good at scavenging and finding miracles out in the dirt.)

“No.” Piper snaps immediately. “No, you are not going into the Wastes. There’s nothing there, Aerrow. You’re not going to find anything down there. Don’t.”

Aerrow flinches back. They don’t know, he reminds himself, they don’t know about five laughing Talons and two dozen ships going down into the Wastes. They don’t know there are wrecks ripe for the picking. They don’t know there is salvation hidden away down in the depths.

“Is there any other choice?” Aerrow whispers, his head ducking down.

Beside him, he can see Finn’s gaze flicking between him and Piper as if he were watching a volleyball match. “I’ll go with him.” Finn offers with a shaky grin. “Two extra hands down there can do nothing but help, right?”

Piper doesn’t say anything but Aerrow knows that he’s won this round. He’s going down into the Wastes.

“Finn, stay here.” Aerrow orders as he shoves the glider into gear. Its not that he doesn’t want the help, but they still don’t know about the wrecks and Aerrow is going to keep it that way as long as he can. “Help Piper set up a camp, I’ll try and bring back something useful.”

Piper gives him a long look as they both ignore Finn’s half hearted protests. She’s got know something is up but Aerrow can’t help but give a sigh of relief when she dips her head down into a nod and drags Finn off the glider.

Aerrow throws himself off the edge of the terra moments later.

He’s got a wreck to salvage from.


	3. Life Continues, it is Your Job to Make it Bearable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Everybody,  
> Here's another update. I know, this one is really early but it was bothering me and I couldn't sleep.  
> I should note that according to the Storm Hawk wiki (which really needs some work) Radarr is a sky-monkey, which yeah, I don't get it either but whatever, I'll roll with it.  
> Just as a heads up, the next chapter, we're going to switch to past tense instead of present tense, because although I challenged myself to try and write it all in the present tense, its not working out. So, yeah, that's gonna change. I'll try not to make it too jarring.  
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

Aerrow surfaces from the Wastes nearly six hours later with a glider strapped down with a deck box over flowing with a variety of supplies. He’s got food to last a few days if they ration, blankets to ward off the cold, and enough scrap to start a frame for a basic defence. There’s clothes tucked into the backpack he had taken from one of the ships and he’s got the supplies that Piper might need if one of _those weeks_ start unexpectedly.

(Aerrow might have grown up surrounded by girls but he really didn’t want to hear about the blood and the pain. He had enough sympathy pain anytime Piper winced to begin with.)

Overall, it was a good haul but he’s got hands that won’t stop shaking and a head that won’t stop spinning. As he touches down to the terra, Aerrow doesn’t register Piper and Finn's cheer. He doesn’t see how they exchange glances and begin to unstrap the box without another word. He doesn’t see how they give him enough room to breathe and too much time in own head.

Aerrow is twelve years old, he owns his first glider, and he carefully does not think of the horrors below as he stumbles away from the glider and retches over the side of the terra. Ash and the smell of melted metal burns the back of his throat and he doesn’t know what to do. He needs to do another run. They need more supplies. They need him to be able to get up and continue. They need him to…

(There are five laughing Talons, two dozen sky-ships, and Miss Helen giving him the saddest smile he has ever seen.)

Between one blink and the next, Aerrow is curled up on his side, one hand dangling over the edge of the terra. Grass pokes uncomfortably into his sides and brushes against his nose. By the sky-gods he wishes that he could close his eyes and pretend this was Deadman’s Corner. He wants to go back to a week ago when the biggest concern he had was trying to figure out who would take him on as an apprentice.

He wants to go back to last week.

(He wants to go home.)

Cliffside is gone. Something reaches up from behind his ribs and grabs him by the throat. His breath trembles and he his heart clenches. God, what is he doing?

What is he doing?

(Cliffside is gone for good.)

(He wants Miss Helen.)

He doesn’t want to go back down to the wrecks. Doesn’t think he can stand outside the ships and look at the still intact bodies one more time. Doesn’t think he can go back down and see the wrecks slowly burn from the inside out. This is so much worse then the mines. This is so much worse then when one of the tunnels had collapsed and everyone had pitched in to shore up the rest and dig through to survivors. This is so much worse then clearing away rubble and grasping at a hand that was too cold and too stiff.

“Aerrow, you gotta look at this!” Finn yells as he drags Aerrow up to his feet. “This is awesome man!”

Aerrow, with the world swaying under his feet and the scent of ash taunting him, stares down at the hand around his wrist and wonders why Finn is so warm. Why is Finn’s hand so warm? And how can Finn touch him? How can Finn touch him after what Aerrow did?

(Miss Helen tells him to go and Aerrow leaves. He doesn’t stay and fight. He doesn’t argue past a few paltry comments. He let Miss Helen die.)

(He let his mother die.)

Finn drags him over to the tree and points up, his hands gesturing wildly. “There’s a house!”

This would be a good time to wonder if Finn had taken a bonk to the head in the past few days, but between the ash and the grime, Aerrow doubts he can find anything. As if sensing Aerrow’s thoughts, Finn pushes Aerrow to the side. “Seriously man, look up!”

Bemused, Aerrow looks up. He doesn’t expect to see an actual house built into the treetop, nor does he expect this place to be in a state of rather good repair from a general look over. This is a stoke of good luck he had never thought to ask for. (Part of him wonders what is going to go wrong, now that something has gone right.)

(Aerrow’s skin burns where Finn brushes against him. Can’t Finn tell? Can’t Finn see that Aerrow is crumbling and burning up in the middle of a terra too small to be named?)

“I said it might have been one of the cottager’s hunting post.” Piper shouts, her voice muffled as she leans into the box Aerrow had hauled up from the Wastes. “Do you think anyone will mind if we use it for a season?”

For a split second, Aerrow chokes on a hysterical laugh. No, he doesn’t think that anyone is going to care if they use the outpost. To be completely honest, he doesn’t think there is anyone else left to care. Cliffside couldn’t have been the only terra attacked, not if the Cyclonians wanted to keep pushing the border.

Aerrow grew up in the borderlands but he doesn’t think the borderlands exist anymore.

(Cliffside burned. Cliffside burned and Aerrow left as the bodies rotted and burned in the Wastes.)

Finn shoves Aerrow’s shoulder again, drawing Aerrow from his gruesome thoughts. “So, how do you think we’re gonna get up there?”

There’s a spark of challenge in Finn’s eyes and Aerrow rolls his shoulders with a strained grin. Nothing is ok, but Finn and Piper can’t know that. They’re not allowed to know. Let them live in ignorance a little longer.

“Is that a challenge?” Aerrow croaks.

Finn doesn’t get a chance to reply before Aerrow is running towards the tree and flinging himself up into the branches. The claws around his throat and heart slip open and he can almost breathe easily as he strains to grab the next branch. This isn’t Cliffside and it never will be, but maybe he can live here. Maybe he can breathe here.

The leaves rustle next to his hand and Aerrow freezes. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. The claws are back around his neck and slowly squeezing his heart and he can’t breathe. (Somewhere on the ground, a talon laughs.) Something blue shoots out of the leaves and smacks into his face. Aerrow flinches back with a yell and he reaches up to lash out at the thing. Then he slips, his balance overshot by the attack and he falls straight back through the branches too quickly.

His landing nocks the wind out of his lungs, and it is only years of experience that has him twisting around and up to his hands and knees before he can even blink his vision back into existence. The thing lets go of his head and Aerrow vaguely sees the fuzzy outline of something too blue and too small before it is shooting forward.

Piper screams something and jumps back. Finn looks to be trying to throw rocks and pebbles at the thing as it scurries around his feet. Aerrow climbs to his feet with a groan. Everything hurts. The blue streak spins between the three of them and Aerrow barely has time to think before the thing shoots towards him and somehow manages to land underneath his shirt.

Everything stops.

The thing is shivering against Aerrow’s stomach and Aerrow is caught halfway to his feet, cupping this furry little thing under his shirt, and staring at Piper and Finn. If Aerrow wasn’t so shocked, the freaked out expression on Finn’s face would have had him in hysterics. He hadn’t seen Finn look so off center since Piper had told him what his name meant. Finn's got one hand raised still and Aerrow can read the fear on his face. “Is it,” Finn stutters, his eyes widening ever so slightly, “is it in your shirt?”

Aerrow looks down. There are two golden eyes staring back up at him and Aerrow can’t breathe. It might be that there’s been so much death already. It might even be that he just spent almost four hours digging through wreckage. The nine hells, it might even be that Aerrow has grown soft. But something around his heart aches at the sight of those golden eyes.

“Its alright, little guy.” Aerrow croons, the world falling away as the thing in his shirt twitches. “Its alright.”

(Nothing is alright. Cliffside _burned._ )

His voice is still scratchy and pained and if he coughs one more time, Aerrow thinks his throat might just bleed in complaint. But, the blue creature shifts about a little more and Aerrow hisses out a gurgled chuckle at the odd sensation of fur brushing against his skin.

The creature pauses.

Aerrow smiles, careful not to show any teeth. “Its alright. I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

The next few moments are tense, the creature frozen in place in Aerrow's shirt and hardly even breathing from what Aerrow can see. Then, ever so slowly, the creature reaches up with two paws and leans against Aerrow's collar bone. Two ears pop up from Aerrow's shirt, and the creature's muzzle peeps up and over Aerrow's collar.

Finn screams and falls to the ground, his hands flinging around as he tries to bolt backwards and keeps slipping. Piper merely looks down at Finn before rolling her eyes up to the sky in exasperation. Yet, Aerrow is unsurprised to see that she doesn’t take a step forward.

“You ok, Aerrow?” She calls over, wincing when the creature flinches back down into Aerrow’s shirt.

Aerrow gives a shaky nod even as he tentatively reaches down and pokes the creature’s head. Considering how fast the creature looks up and bares long and rather sharp teeth, Aerrow figures he’s lucky he still has all his fingers. Slowly, the creature stands back up on it’s hind legs and sniffs at Aerrow’s fingers. It is all ruffled blue fur and gold eyes. Its teeth slip just below the top lip, and Aerrow can see sections of the fur that are shorter then the rest and what he suspects might be long healed scars crisscrossing it’s back and stomach.

“Piper,” Aerrow says, his voice level and soft in and effort not to spook the creature, “what kind of animal is blue, has long ears, and definitely is not a rabbit?”

Piper pauses in the middle of hauling Finn back up to his feet, her head tilting to the side as she mentally runs through her encyclopedia of knowledge. “Blue?”

Aerrow lifts his other hand and points to the long ears that are poking out from his collar. “Blue.”

Piper blinks. “A sky-monkey?” She eventually stutters out, her voice rising up in pitch as she spits out the words.

Considering Aerrow doesn’t have any idea either, he shrugs. In the grand scheme of things, he figures the species of the creature doesn’t matter. The sky-monkey crawls up onto Aerrow’s shoulder and looks around. Two paws are clawed into Aerrow’s shirt and one paw has stretched over and grasped onto Aerrow’s hair for stability. Slowly, the creature leans forward and sniffs at the side of Aerrow’s head.

Aerrow holds in a breath, his thoughts dragging up the image of the creature’s teeth. All it would take was a quick swipe of claws or a lunge forward with a snap of a jaw, and Aerrow would loose an eye.

The creature sneezes.

Aerrow can’t help it. He snickers. He is covered in ash, absolutely exhausted, and the sheer disgust on the creature’s face is exactly how Aerrow feels. His head tilts back and the creature yelps as its perch shifts and shakes. He starts laughing.

His laughter is born completely of exhaustion and shock. Almost two dozen ships in a pile in the Wastes, a wreckage ripe for the picking. He just had to climb over the bodies of his friends to do it. This is so much worse then the mine collapse, this is so much worse then doing a run for the docks. There is salvation down in the Wastes, but it comes at a price Aerrow can barely stomach.

(He would throw up, but there is nothing left in his stomach.)

There is a soft tap on his cheek and Aerrow looks over to see the sky-monkey chirp and pat his cheek again. Its ears are flat against its head and those teeth are hidden away in its muzzle, but its paw is patting Aerrow's cheek in a mimicry of what Aerrow had done to coax the poor thing out of his shirt.

There is something pure about the scene. Something that isn’t touched by ashes or fire. Something that isn’t Cliffside or Cliffhouse. It’s just Aerrow and a kind little sky-monkey. Aerrow has lost everything in under a week and staring down at the sky-monkey, Aerrow thinks that as long as he can breathe and he can walk, he might just make it out of here.

He might be able to keep going on.

Until then, he’s got two goals hovering behind him.

Aerrow finds his feet and when he turns to look over at Piper and Finn, his smile isn’t wide, but it’s there. Its there, and that’s all the matters.

Piper looks up from where she had begun to sort the supplies Aerrow had managed to haul up. “I don’t know where you found this stuff, but you got a good haul. If we could get up into the tree house though, that would make our lives a lot easier.”

Aerrow and the sky-monkey wince at the same time under her sharp tone. Piper simply raises an eyebrow as she looks between the blue fluff ball and Aerrow. “This time,” she says sweetly, “let’s not come flying out of the tree being chased.”

Beside her, Finn takes a rather large step out of her reach. They all know what a sickly sweet tone means and none of them want to be in target distance to get hit or ordered to work. Aerrow all but runs up the tree when Piper looks away. He figures its safer to be up here, where the only dangerous thing is the sky-monkey on his shoulder then be one the ground with a moody Piper and an annoying Finn.

Surprisingly enough, getting up to the house isn’t hard and getting inside is a simple matter of finding a window to slip through. (Or so Aerrow thinks.) The trapdoor is locked and Aerrow isn’t about to risk falling out of the tree a second time trying to bust through a solid door. It doesn’t help that every other movement he takes makes his lower back throb and his hip shriek in protest.

Climbing higher, Aerrow finds a ‘front door' that led to an interesting platform Aerrow could only assume was a look out perch. The so-called ‘porch’ has debris scattered across the deck and just from a general look about, Aerrow is willing to guess that the cottage had been boarded up and closed for at least a full season. The sky-monkey chitters as it scampers across the deck and Aerrow smirks at the way it pokes and paws at the debris.

Swinging himself off the deck, Aerrow jumps through the tree and begins to look for a pair of shutters he can leverage off and slip through. Except, when Aerrow finally does spy a window, he just about falls right back out of the tree in shock. Instead of shudders that Aerrow thought he would have to pry open, it had glass! Glass! Real glass windows!

That sort of luxury out in the borders was reserved for the sky-ships and those with money to burn. For a simple cottage treehouse to have real glass? Who would have had that sort of money to throw around?

Ever so slowly, Aerrow had pressed his palms against the glass and pushed up, hoping that the trick worked just as well on house windows as it did on sky-ship portholes. He could have cheered when the window slowly began to lift from the frame. Taking one hand off the window, Aerrow reached out blindly for a branch or stick to shove in the frame to keep the window open. Only, before he can, the Sky-monkey gently places a thick branch in the corner of the frame and darts into the dark cottage. The creature lands on the floor and Aerrow swears it taps its foot and gestures for Aerrow to come inside.

For a moment, Aerrow pauses, long dormant warning bells clanging in the back of his head. Even he knows it is a bad idea to follow unknown creatures into dark rooms but, his choices are inside where there is shelter, or outside where the sky is still overcast with ash and smoke.

Aerrow climbs inside.

Daylight just manages to poke through the window behind him and Aerrow makes an appreciative sound at the scene before him. The whole room is covered by white sheets and Aerrow feels a bit like an intruder when he stalks his way across the room and towards where the trap door. Is. From inside, it is a simple matter of sliding back two bolts and throwing the rope tied to the guide ring, down the hole.

Figuring Piper and Finn will find the rope when they're ready, Aerrow pushes up to his feet and stares about the room. It is one large communal space. A fridge is tucked away in one corner, beside a rickety looking dining table set. In the other three corners are beds. The walls are lines with shelves and Aerrow has the absurd thought of what is he supposed to put on the shelves? (Everything burned.) Realistically, the whole place seems to have a dormitory feel to it and Aerrow has to swallow the pain at the thought.

Miss Helen would be ever so disappointed at the amount of dust gathering in the corners.

All of a sudden, Aerrow can’t stay in that room. He drops down through the trap door and all but flings himself out of the tree. He hits the ground with a roll and is up to his feet before he is even aware the air isn’t whistling past his ears anymore.

(It is a mark of how terribly the day has been that neither Piper of Finn look up at Aerrow's sudden appearance. There are supplies to sort and a rudimentary defence to build, they don’t have time to be concerned about the boy who just fell from the sky.)

“I'm not going to ask where you got these.” Piper calls out when she hears Aerrow approach.

Any other day, Aerrow might have smirked. It was a sentiment Piper said anytime Aerrow or Finn appeared with a _questionable_ item. It was easier for her to accept their _gifts_ if she didn’t know exactly how they had procured said gift. In Aerrow's defence, nearly half of what he got, was above the board and completely legal. (He would never admit it, but Piper's concerns made him steer clear of some of the shady deals and trades. Most of the time, Aerrow dealt in the straight and narrow.)

Aerrow inclined his head. “That might be for the best.” He admitted eventually.

(The ships were _burning._ )

For the first time in a long while, Piper didn’t seem bothered by his admittance. Instead, she pointed to the stack of scrap Finn had been sorting through. “If we could get some more gauge 3 steel then we might be able to set up a perimeter around the tree sizable for a fire pit, docking spots for the gliders, a small garden, and some space to move around a bit but still be defended.”

Piper looks up from the more personal and organic supplies Aerrow had salvaged, something raw and tired crossing over her face. “It doesn’t have to happen tonight Aerrow. Cliffside was bombed by Hellfire, as far as the Talons are concerned, their buddies and gliders were just eaten by the flames. We've got awhile yet before there are any more problems.”

Aerrow isn't sure where she had gotten her assurances or how Piper can say anything with such confidence, but he nods in agreement anyway. “Yeah, ok.” He whispers.

Some of the tension falls off Piper's shoulders and Aerrow is uncomfortably reminded of that morning when Piper suddenly shoved a bag into his arms. “Get back into that house. If there’s a bed, then go to sleep. We'll come get you if we need you. If there isn’t a bed, well, get inventive.” She says dryly.

Shaking with the effort of staying in the here and now, Aerrow manages to choke out a garbled “What?” even as he wavers in place.

Piper pats his arm. “There’s a blanket and some food. Eat something and then go to bed.”

Aerrow can’t find it in himself to argue, and the next thing he knows, he’s flopping down on a bare mattress, the white sheet on the floor, and the blanket from the pack tucked securely under his head. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

…***…

The next few days are an exercise in torture. Aerrow refuses to allow Finn and Piper down into the Wastes and Piper refuses to allow Aerrow to take on all of the responsibilities.

The duties end up being divided like this: Piper takes over cooking and laying out their little hideaway. Finn, who next to Aerrow has the most extensive knowledge and experience with traps, walks around the little terra and booby traps the hell out of the land. Aerrow and the little blue sky-monkey who seemed to have been alone on the terra, fling themselves down into the Wastes and haul up the loot Piper requests.

Aerrow doesn’t want to admit it, but he knows Piper and Finn have figured out Aerrow is looting from a wreck. He just hopes they don’t figure out what wreck he’s pillaging.

Slowly, the terra becomes a little more protected and a little bit like a place Aerrow might someday call home. They've got a back access hatch that sometimes sticks, a tree house with real glass windows, two gliders, and food. Piper’s already been muttering about planting and conserving their food stores and Aerrow just about killed himself in hysterical laughter when on the third run down to the Wastes, he had found chickens.

Chickens.

Real live feathered fiendish chickens.

Nearly two dozen ships took a nose dive and it had been the chickens that survived the fall.

(There’s a joke in here somewhere, he knows it.)

Still, Aerrow climbs down into the Wastes and pretends he does not see the shapes digging through the rock or the creatures swimming through the lava. Aerrow is twelve years old, he is too small, too weak, to dig through the larger sections of the wreckage, but he doesn’t have to. What he can reach is enough to keep them all going. What he can reach, if they don’t use, then they can sell to the traders and merchants they see slipping through the clouds a few clicks out from their terra.

(Aerrow does not know that what he is doing is wrong. That what he is doing is equated to grave robbing by Sky-law. He is twelve years old, his terra has burned, and he is hungry. Aerrow is a boy born during the Fall and in the shadow of the Golden Age. Aerrow is more concerned about safety then he is about legality and morality.)

It is on one of these runs that Aerrow names Radarr. The sky-monkey hangs off Aerrow's shoulder and hip as if afraid the boy is going to disappear into thin air. Considering the creature weighs roughly twenty pounds, this arrangement isn’t always the kindest to Aerrow's balance or limbs, but he makes do. He doesn’t have a choice. When they're down in the Wastes, Radarr always has both ears swiveling and nose twitching and Aerrow takes one look at the scene and promptly dubs the sky-monkey Radarr, after the proximity alerts Piper had declared most sky-ships had on board.

…***…

It is a few weeks after they found the terra and Aerrow looks to the sky one morning and realizes that there is no more smoke in the sky. They had taken to covering their meager water supplies and delicate tools with tarps and sheets they had found under one of the beds in the house, and Aerrow is midway through the morning ritual of stripping off the tarps when the realization strikes him.

The thought is swiftly followed by the urgency to turn in the direction that the smoke plume had been taunting him since they had thrown themselves into the sky.

Aerrow is twelve years old, what is left of him family is safe behind him in the tree, and Aerrow looks out to the skies and realizes he cannot see Cliffside. Part of him wonders why he isn’t screaming, why he isn’t stumbling to the cliffs and searching the skies.

But he knows.

He _knows._

Piper had explained it a few nights before. Hellfire crystal bombs burn through everything until there is nothing left. The fires will burn until the terra crumbles down into the Wastes.

Aerrow’s hands don’t shake as he turns back and begins to strip down the basins. He doesn’t cry as he goes out to feed the chickens. He doesn’t scream when Finn and Piper bounce down to the ground and smile and joke that _hey the ash stopped falling._

Aerrow doesn’t do anything at all.

But, when Piper comes up after her chores are finished and taps him on the shoulder, he forces on a grin and a spark of interest into his eyes. To him, the mask seems fragile. She should be able to see the glass in his eyes and razors in his teeth.

But she doesn’t and Aerrow doesn’t blame her. Not when he knows she stares out into the skies and reaches for a bag that is no longer there. Aerrow looks away every time. Her parents research, the books she had drafted and drawn and poured so much of herself into. Gone. Ashes on the wind. (It’s the only thing she grieves and Aerrow doesn’t blame her.)

Piper pretends not to see the cracks in Aerrow's soul and he pretends not to see the shaking in her hands.

“Come on Aerrow, wanna play sky-knight?” Piper asks, something in her voice fragile in a way it hasn’t been since Aerrow had blown them both up so long ago.

The blood in Aerrow's veins turn to ice and his heart stops. Sky-knight. Where were the sky-knights when Cliffside burned? Where were the sky-knights when the Talons swarmed? Where were the sky-knights?

For a moment, Aerrow wants to stand, wants to scream Wants to let out what he had buried the moment he realized Cliffside was _gone._

But Finn stands behind Piper and he looks desperate. He's got bloodshot eyes and twitching fingers and if they were back _there,_ if they were back _home,_ Aerrow would be dragging him to the cliffs and jumping until the boy laughed and settled. But they aren’t and it hurts, but Piper looks tired and Finn looks desperate and Aerrow can’t say no.

“Sure.” Aerrow eventually manages to say, his throat rasping like sandpaper. “Yeah, let’s play sky-knight.”

Piper grabs him by the hand and hauls him to his feet, and sky-gods, Aerrow throws himself into the game. He throws himself into the pretend. He throws himself into the world where they're sky-knights and a squadron is behind them and every mission is a success. He throws himself into a world where they can save burning terras and no one ever dies.

(It’s the most fun Aerrow has had in weeks.)

…***…

Somehow, over time, playing sky-knight becomes more challenging, more practical. Aerrow pushes himself into testing out stunts on the gliders. Finn becomes obsessed with the target range Piper sets up after he accidentally broke a window. Piper begins to build up her crystal collection.

It’s not easy. Aerrow spends more time fixing malfunctions and digging through wrecks in the Waste then he does pulling stunts. He pilfers power cells, levitation crystals and maps out the nearest wrecks in an ever growing circle in the hopes there will be better fuel sources. Ironically, it is Radarr that somehow finds and maintains most of the breakdowns on the gliders. Between the two of them, they've got a working glider most days and a pile of extra parts on the others.

Finn and Piper learn how to fly and how to confidently pull some of Aerrow's tamer stunts, but for now Finn and Piper prefer to remain grounded. None of them have parachutes after all.

So, while Aerrow tumbles through the skies, Finn and Piper stay on the ground. Finn pushes himself through the range, learning how to hit harder and land every hit. (He still can’t aim anything under fifty feet but Aerrow is willing to let that go considering he practices on moving targets in the sky.) Still, the poor boy is improvising with rocks and sling shots and Aerrow doesn’t understand why. Finn had worked with a carpenter for almost six months back on Cliffside to build a bow, surely it couldn’t be too hard to transfer the skills over?

“Aerrow, I’m twelve.” Finn mutters when Aerrow asks why he doesn’t use a bow. “I’m just behind a growth spurt, the draw weight would need to be modified too soon, and I move to quickly for a bow.”

Aerrow just blinks at the response.

Finn sighs again. “Aerrow, for me to use a bow, I’d need something that could shoot past fifty feet without me having to adapt for angles and something that would keep the draw weight consistent.”

Aerrow must be giving a rather confused look in response because when Piper goes walking by, she leans in and pats him on the arm. “He needs a crossbow Aerrow. You are never going to find one this far out in the borders.”

(Aerrow is determined to take that as a challenge. He adds crossbow to his list of loot to salvage from the Wastes.)

Yet, out of the three of them, it is Piper who branches out the most. Continuing the habits from Cliffside, Piper spends just over an hour each day throwing herself through a tumbling and stretching routine. Without the cliffs and the trees to swing through, Aerrow finds himself joining, if only as a way to get rid of the excess energy. Soon, tumbling turns into three-way fist fights and tag-team spars. Radarr tends to sit on the sidelines, especially after they learned the hard way he's got claws and teeth able to tear through skin like paper.

It is Piper who encourages Aerrow and Finn to look up from their jumps and their targets and to fight each other. It is Piper who first grabs left over brush and debris and tells Aerrow and Finn to fight. It is Piper who creates their first working crystal blaster and it is Piper who urges Aerrow to not just fly through his environment but to _use it._

They are not on Cliffside anymore, they are in the borderlands, and as much as they play pretend, all it takes is one Talon and their little home would be bombed out of existence.

So, they spar.

They break more sticks then they can count and they learn the hard way why one should never take a branch to the head. (Finn's ears ring for hours.) They run drills, they shoot targets, and they live.

They live.

…***…

Slowly, the weeks turn into months and after a time, Aerrow can no longer keep the other two from his salvage runs. He brings them down to the Waste. He beings them down to the wrecks, to the worn out and charred shells of the salvation Cliffside had been ever so grateful to see all that time ago.

It does not take Aerrow more than a moment to realize they do not recognize the ships. (He doesn’t know if he should laugh, or if he should cry.)

The bodies have long since burned beyond recognition and Aerrow can only be grateful he does not have to stare into the decaying faces of his neighbors as he picks over scrap and the livelihoods they had tucked away in the bowels of the ships.

Piper finds crystals and books.

Finn finds new weapons and comics.

Aerrow finds tools and more fuels for his nightmares.

(He doesn’t let Piper or Finn go into the bunks. Refuses. Absolutely pitched a fit when they try to argue against. What he doesn’t tell them is that the bunks had all been occupied. That the nature of the ships were to open all access points for safer during an attack so civilians could escape unscathed. The crystal pulse the talons had shot out would have overridden the controls.)

(The ships had gone down with all the doors _locked._ )

It is one thing to salvage from the storerooms, it is another to do it in the bunks.

...***…

Aerrow is leaning against the wall, his head tilted up to the sun when Finn shouts from atop the house deck. Aerrow hasn’t been there long. His glider needs a recharge and Piper had rigged up an ingenious doohickey that converted some type of crystal energy into the proper dilution for a fuel cell, which meant while they could now fly without worrying about power losses, it also meant that during a recharge someone had to be present at all times.

Aerrow's head thunks against the wall as he groans. For a moment, Aerrow almost considers ignoring the other boy. Finn has a habit of yelling over every speck in the sky and Aerrow doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to have to drag himself to his feet and convince Finn that, no, a bird is not enough cause for an alarm.

Only, Finn keeps shouting. Fingers of dread curl up Aerrow's spine and lord, he’s going to be sick. (Kilo comes screaming into Cliffhouse. _The terra is burning._ ) Aerrow is on his feet before he can process what Finn is shouting and he’s twisting himself around to see what has Finn so wound up.

Piper bursts through the front access hatch of their defenses. “Aerrow, come on!” she hisses. Her mouth is set in a grim line and Aerrow can see her knuckles whitening around a rather long and sturdy pipe. “It’s the Talons.”


	4. Learn Your History to Know Your Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back with another chapter, wow. I'm kinda scared by how quickly some of these fics are going up.  
> Anyway, this chapter doesn't have any warnings but Aerrow is not as kind in this fic as he is in the show, or at least, not yet.  
> But uh, yeah... new chapter and some new fics on my dash if anyone wants to check that out.  
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me!  
> -Lost  
> Ps; be patient with me for updates, my computer broke and I'm still transferring all my data to my phone and my new machine.

Aerrow turns thirteen while taking potshots at a Cyclonian Youth Squad. There is a certain tragedy to the entire situation. When he turned twelve, his terra burned. Now, when he turns thirteen, he leans out a window of a home he has decided to fight for, and trusts that Piper knew what she was doing when she modified the toy splat-blaster they had found down in the wrecks. He turns thirteen with bitten lips, steady hands, and hard eyes.

He turns thirteen and the worst part was, he didn’t notice. There was no moment of acknowledgement, no thought that it had been a year since his world turned to ash. There was nothing.

Their gliders had been lost to a skirmish almost three months back. None of them can leave the terra. They cannot go down to the Wastes safely, and they're stuck. They're stuck. They've barely got enough food to last a storm. Their gardens are barely surviving the summer heat, and they need one good rainfall to fill up the basins.

Aerrow turns thirteen taking pot-shots at a youth squad and the only thing he feels is a blanket of calm. It is a simple matter to line up the sights, measure the distances, count his heartbeats, and pull the trigger. He doesn’t have Finn's flare or accuracy, nor does he have Piper’s arsenal. What he does have, is steady hands and an anger that could bat even the gods from the sky if they dared to stand in his way.

What he is doing, is a mercy. Aerrow reminded himself again as he deliberately threw the next shot wide. It wouldn’t take much to let the squad land and to allow them to stumble into one of Aerrow's more devious traps. It would be safer. There would be no chance of tumbling down into the Wastes and it would conserve crystals and power. It would be the smart thing to do. But what he is doing is a mercy.

Every shot Aerrow allows to come a little  _ too  _ close and a little  _ too  _ powerful, gives the youth squad a chance to back off. It gives them the chance to realize that becoming a Talon isn’t sunshine and daisies. It isn’t kindness and comfort. What Aerrow is doing was a mercy.

(He has to remind himself every time Finn calls out an alert, that these are boys. These so-called Talons are nothing more than  _ children _ . They aren’t Talons. They still have a chance to redeem themselves. They still have a chance to become something more than what they are now.)

Radarr chatters something and Aerrow swings his sights up enough to make out the distant figure of a Cyclonian.

(Sky-gods, he’s shooting at children. At  _ children.  _ The Cyclonian is a baby-faced boy who probably isn’t even old enough to remember pre-Fall. Every order he gives is shouted with a voice crack and Aerrow barely holds himself from snickering. The fact  _ Aerrow  _ is too young to remember pre-Fall, is besides the point. He is shooting at children and sky-gods, there is only the Wastes down below. He doesn’t have the gliders and this far out, there are no patrols to yank survivors from the Wastes. Just merchant ships and civilian cruisers.)

(The children are damning themselves to burning below just because of the patches they sew into their jackets. There is  _ no one  _ Aerrow would condemn to the Wastes, to the fires.)

(He’s already seen enough people burn.)

Aerrow turns thirteen taking pot-shots and thinking that there had to be more to life then this.

…***…

They’ve run out of crystal power and this had to be their fourth Cyclonian Youth Squad that has attempted to take the terra. Aerrow doesn’t know if the previous squads have been kicked out of the core or if they’ve been transferred and to be honest, he doesn’t particularly care. They’ve been forced to allow the squads to land on their terra, the one they had so gladly proclaimed Neverlandia for the simple fact they’ve successfully managed to keep all other factions off their terra. 

Aerrow and Radarr have been reduced to playing scout and bait, leading the squads through the breakneck part of the terra. Most of the time, the children (sky-gods they’re all  _ children _ ) get tangled up enough that Aerrow and Finn loop back a few hours later and kick the kids into the skies once they’ve stopped babbling and apologizing.

This squad, this fourth one, they’re smarter. They don’t land. They fly just high enough to be menacing and fast enough that Aerrow can’t activate any of the traps littered through the terra floor. The most insulting thing about this whole situation is that this squad uses petal gliders. Petal-gliders! The humiliation of having a lower level youth-squad come after having chased off teens on real gliders coils thick and low in Aerrow’s gut. All Aerrow has to do is to keep the kids up in the air long enough for them to run out of energy and plummet to the ground.

All Aerrow has to do is to play the waiting game.

Only, Neverlandia isn’t that big, hardly enough for the three of them to live and sustain themselves. Aerrow can barely bolt across the terra without being herded by the children playing Talon in the sky and there is a bitter taste of ash and failure in his throat when Aerrow realizes he can do nothing but bolt to the house and reunite with Piper and Finn. The sensation only gets worse when he slides under the entrance hatch to their house and he looks up to see Finn holding up five fingers with a grimace.

Five in a unit. 

Storm it all to the Wastes, the sick bastards are starting to mimic the units of a sky-knight squadron.

Aerrow hears the kids slam onto the ground and the walls of the defences shutter as the unit falls against the gate. He itches to do something, to do more than look up as the defences shutter and Piper scrambles down to the ground. But, they’ve only got one splat blaster and Finn is the only one able to utilize it to full potential and sky-gods Aerrow has never been patient.

“It’s time to choose sides, Aerrow!”* A boy calls, his voice cracking mid-way through the scripted plea.

Once, Aerrow might have been concerned that the youth squad leader knows his name, but at this point, Aerrow knows the script by route. Besides, as Finn had long since pointed out, there was probably a file on the three of them back at the youth squad station from the very moment Aerrow had refused the recruitment summons. To be fair, all three of them got twitchy when a Cyclonian flew close by and really, the Talons should know better than to ask anyone who flew an alliance flag, if they would like to join the bastard cause.

Piper places a hand on his shoulder for a moment and shakes her head. They all know the script by now. They all know how the Cyclonian children would try and coax them to coming over and being docile. They all knew that the children would cry about how there was always food, shelter, water, and crystals under the Cyclonian banner.

By this point, exasperation is written into Aerrow’s bones so much more than the exhilaration of a possible fight. Sky-gods, he’s facing literal children and if this whole situation would just hurry up then he could go, have some lunch, and maybe a nap. Honestly, a nap sounded absolutely wonderful.

Piper slides up next to him. “We’ve got everything covered.” she says, laughter coating her tone as Finn makes another jeer towards the children running around outside. “Finn’s got the sky, the front access hatch is good and locked, there’s no other point of entry aside from…” she trailed off, silence falling like a sledge-hammer over her words.

“Piper!” Aerrow barks, his head swiveling around. His heart just kicked up a notch and he swears there was ice trailing down his spine. “Piper, what is it?”

Under his stare, Piper ducks down behind her checklist. He can see the blush coating her cheeks from his place beside the defences and he grinds his teeth. Aerrow doesn’t care for embarrassment or accidents, he wouldn’t even care if Piper or Finn had accidently signalled Master Cyclonia himself. What he cares about is knowing what the hell he needs to do to make whatever it is that made Piper blush, work, and work quickly.

“It’s the back access hatch,” Piper hisses, her cheeks still glowing with heat, “you know it sometimes sticks.”

Aerrow does little more than shoot her a look as he bursts into a run. The back access hatch had been a bone of contention between them all for weeks. Aerrow could move the hatch easily, it was a simple matter of pushing up and to the right when it got stuck. Finn and Piper had been struggling to open the hatch for a while, and Aerrow had offered to go down into the Wastes to find a repair patch, but neither Finn or Piper would let him string himself down into the depths. At least, they wouldn’t let him go without a glider. He had been saying for a while that leaving the back access hatch stuck was a problem.

Still, grumbling about the problem isn't going to solve anything. So, he sucks up the annoyance and pushes himself to run faster. Aerrow skids around the base of the tree. All he has to do is slam the lock down on the back hatch and reinforce the hinges. It’s not a difficult task, in fact, it's probably the easiest thing he would do all day.

(But his heart is in his throat and there is something boiling in his blood. Listen, the wind hisses in his ears,  _ listen and watch. _ )

Aerrow skids around the tree, one hand raised in a wave for Finn to keep his eyes glued to the other surroundings in case of backup, and nearly screeches as he finds himself being stared at by three strange men. On his hip, Radarr hisses in surprise and flashes a little bit of claw. It is only Radarr's reaction that tells Aerrow he isn’t hallucinating the whole thing. But still, it is instinct to look up, to check for signs and gliders circling above.

Part of Aerrow wonders why Finn hadn’t screamed loud enough to bring down the house when the men had dropped down into the defenses. Part of him wonders why he isn’t throwing punches already.

Ideally, the men would be from a squadron. Maybe some young things trying to earn their patches. But Aerrow sees streaks of grey on their temples and there are no gliders circling. There is nothing in the skies aside from clouds and a few birds. Behind them, he can hear the kids banging away at the hatch and he has a minute, maybe two, before the situation spirals completely out of control.

“Young Aerrow!” One of the men says cheerfully, stepping forward with his arms out wide. “Such a pleasure to meet you!”

For a moment, the world stops. Oh, the kids are still banging away at the access hatch and Aerrow's heartbeat is still screaming in his ears, but otherwise, the world grinds to a halt. Aerrow has been dodging Cyclonian patrols and jumping through wrecks on the regular. At this point, his name is plastered against a wall in every outpost from here to the Master's fortress, but aside from the youth squads, no one cared to use his name.

Aerrow slid back a step, his eyes narrowing at the bright grin. “How do you know my name?” he hisses.

(Over his shoulder, he can hear Miss Helen barking at him to be polite, but he shoves the thought down. Politeness is reserved for Piper and Finn. It is reserved for those who have his respect and those who stand with him. Otherwise, Aerrow is about as polite as a Phoenix chasing after a Phoenix Stone.)

The man keeps smiling. “Oh come now Aerrow…”

Aerrow steps forward with a hand slashing through the air. “No, I don’t have time for this.”

Aerrow learned the hard way, he has to prioritize. He has to put his people and his terra first. Right now, the most dangerous thing are the kids and their skewed belief in the Cyclonian cause. If Aerrow can lock the hatch, then all they have to do is wait out the kids. It wouldn’t be the first time and it most certainly won’t be the last.

Aerrow doesn’t have time to cater to old men with joyful voices and figures that speak of a life of peace and easy living. Aerrow doesn’t have time. (Aerrow never has time.)

He steps forward and shoves his way through the blockade of old men. It takes everything he has not to flinch at the sensation of eyes at his back and hands on his shoulders. All it would take was a well placed crystal or the cold bite of steel and Aerrow would be a withering and bleeding mass on the ground.

“Move.” He growls when the men jump back in his way, knocking his hands away from the lock.

The men almost look disappointed. “You are the last descendant, the only son of…”

“Move!” Aerrow snarls, the word tearing out of his throat as he tries to shove his way through the men again

“Lightening Strike!” The man on the far right shouts, glee twisting his features into something Aerrow would call sinister. “You are the descendant of Lightening Strike!”

Later, Aerrow will try to explain why he hesitated why he stopped. He never finds a reasonable answer. All he knows is that Piper had spent years telling stories of sky-knights and heroes. That Finn had watched her with wide eyes and fingers twisted into the embalms Piper had stitched into their ratty blankets.

Aerrow doesn’t know who Lightening Strike is, doesn’t know why the name slots into a gaping hole in his chest and warms with affection. He doesn’t know the name of sky-knights, doesn’t know the names of squadrons or the heroes of old. He is a border rat, after all. What need does he have of sky-knights when even they would not stop the ash?

Still, Aerrow stops. The men still smile with sinister eyes and greedy teeth, but Aerrow stops to listen.

One man steps forward, his hood does nothing to cover sharp cheekbones and too wide lips. Aerrow has no time to move, to think, before the man is wrapped around his shoulders and breathing into his ear. “Take this,” the man hisses, laughter making his words stretch and fly, “and follow the map. Follow your destiny.”

He slides off Aerrow's shoulder and practically dances away. In his wake, Aerroe is left with crawling skin and a sudden need to drop into a tub and scrub at his skin until the sensation stops. In his hand he holds a tube of gold he would probably be able to trade for a glider depending on the purity, and he  _ still has no time _ .

There is no time.

The gate gives a great shudder, Aerrow turns to call for help, and he sees nothing but three colourful birds watching him from the top of the wall. There is no time to wonder where the men went. There is no time to scream for Piper or Finn.

There is no time.

The gate slams open. Aerrow turns and gets ready to throw his first punch. He is thirteen, he has sent too many youth squads to the depths of the Waste to even think of standing down, and in the back of his throat all he can taste is  _ ash. _

Under his fist, a nose gives away with a satisfying crunch. A boy falls back. Aerrow steps forward, hauls the boy down and slams his knee up. The boy is twisting and heaving in his hold. Aerrow slams his knee into the boy again. All Aerrow sees is fire and he drops the boy to the ground, uncaring if the boy begins to cough up blood or not.

Aerrow is angry. He’s already lost one terra to fire and Talons, he's not about to lose another. He’s a border rat, he's got no problems using his teeth and his nails to inflict as much damage as possible. These boys might be children, but Aerrow draws the line at them entering his  _ home.  _ Aerrow steps forward for the next boy with a growl on his face and rage in his blood. The next little while blurs into a haze of satisfaction and pain, and it lasts all the way until he hears a soft little gasp behind him that makes his blood run cold.

He doesn’t have to turn around to know Piper is being held by one of the Talon Boys. He doesn’t have to turn to know that she's got a sharp piece of crystal pressed against her neck or that Finn has already been disarmed. He doesn’t fight when the four of them are tossed into the chicken coop and hoisted into the air. He doesn’t argue when the boys snicker and laugh below him, jeering and booing at their captives.

He doesn’t do anything at all.

Eventually, the boys drift apart, moving for different sections of the base. It is only when the boys are out of earshot that Piper looks up from where she had tucked her head into her knees. “Aerrow,” she whispers, her lower lip wobbling and her eyes a bit cracked and flinty, “Aerrow, I’m so sorry.”

Finn says nothing at all. His jaw is clenched, he’s got one hand wrapped around his wrist and his eyes are a bit too dark for Aerrow's liking. It doesn’t take much to know that the fair haired boy blames himself for missing the back hatch as an entrance.

(They are all border rats, they don’t know how not to take the blame of their situation off their own shoulders.)

Still, Aerrow clenches tight to the pipe the man gave him, now dented and bloodied, and wonders how the boys had missed it when they had thrown him into the makeshift cell. He doesn’t question the rare bit of good luck.

“Piper,” he whispers, his head coming down so that there was no chance the boys wandering about below could overhear if they wandered too close, “what does de-send-ant mean?”

(He's still not good with the fancy words. Miss Helen had been a practical woman with little to no frivolity. She said what she meant and meant what she said. Up until Piper and her books, Aerrow’s biggest word had been a rather interesting swear he picked up at the sky-docks.)

Piper, long used to the random questions, doesn’t even blink. “Child of.” She paused, her nose wrinkling. “Well, not quite, but close enough.”

There is a small thought that threads through the back of Aerrow’s mind as the pieces snap into place. It is not a kind thought, but he supposes it is not meant to be. He could drop the pipe. Could pretend it was something he had picked up from a wreck and forgotten in a pouch. He could throw it away, kick it off the edge of the terra, and forget all about it.

(Aerrow is an orphan. He is the child of  _ nothing. _ )

What use does he have for sky-knights? They didn’t come when Cliffside was burning and he rather doubts they'll come now.

But…

Aerrow leans forward and places the pipe gently into Piper's hands. “What is this?” he asks.

There is a sort of reverence in the way she takes the pipe and slowly unscrews the cap. Piper is typically not the quiet sort when working, her fingers constantly drumming on the benches, a soft hum following her every movement, and soft murmurs of theories and facts whispered as she teased new tricks out of crystals and steel. However, this time she is silent.

A parchment and a crystal key drops out to the bottom of the cage.

Finn scoops up the key with a general confused air, Aerrow and Piper stare at the parchment. Piper's hands shake as she picks up the parchment, Aerrow notes absently. Although, he cant say much, his own breath is caught in his throat and even he, as uneducated and as dense as he seems to be, knows what this map shows.

It’s a map of the Wastes.

Outdated and poorly etched, but then Aerrow supposes few people ever venture down into the Wastes often enough for him to be impressed by any map. Piper's fingers brush the symbol of a squadron Aerrow has never seen before. “Do you know what this means?” she whispers in awe. “This is a map to the Condor.”

Aerrow and Finn exchange a look, and Finn holds up the crystal key with a raised eyebrow. “And I'm assuming the key?”

There is a spark in Piper's eyes that Aerrow doesn’t know how to name. Her hand brushes over the map and she practically shakes from where she is half folded over top of it. “Descendant.” She whispers, her fingers sweeping over a flowing set of glyphs. “Aerrow.”

There is a certain weight to her words, as if she is reading judgement over their heads. She bites at her lip. “Aerrow, do you know the name of your father?”

Something in Aerrow's chest  _ cracks. _

Piper closes her eyes as if her next statement will be less damning if she doesn’t have to see the affect. “Oh Aerrow, you're the son of a sky-knight.” The words are no less cutting for all that Piper whispers them. “Bye sky-law, you have exclusive rights to the wreck and the name of the squadron, should you decide to pursue it.”

“So, they’re gone.” Aerrow whispers, something in his stomach twisting up tight and pressing against his lungs. He doesn’t know why this bothers him. His parents abandoned him. Miss Helen raised him. He has two perfect family members right beside him.

His so-called father was a sky-knight.

His parents are dead.

(Miss Helen burned.)

Piper’s hands clench the parchment. Wrinkles spread across the fragile paper and Aerrow can’t find it in himself to take the map away. His parents were dead. His father died a coward in a backwater battle and Aerrow should not be this worked up over a man he never even knew existed.

“Aerrow,” Piper hisses, her cheeks paling as she looks up at him and then back down to the map. “Aerrow, your father was Lightening Strike.” She says the name with reverence, with awe.

Aerrow still doesn’t know what the name means.

Piper shakes her head in exasperation. “Aerrow, Lightening Strike was the leader of the Storm Hawks. He was the leader of the original resistance against Cyclonian.”

The world seems to tilt under him and Aerrow clutches at the chicken wire of the cage. No. No. No, that wasn’t possible. His parents  _ left him.  _ They tossed him away. They threw him out onto the furthest reaches of the borders. He was given away.

His father wasn’t a hero.

His father couldn’t be a hero.

“Aerrow, your father was murdered.” Piper says, her hands clutching onto his knee. “Lightening Strike lead the charge against the Cyclonians in what was supposed to be the final battle of the Great War. His co-pilot, The Dark Ace, stabbed him in the back and threw out the crystals that created the  _ Fall. _ ”

There is a ringing in his ears and Aerrow can only stare down at the map. He’s numb. There is ash in the back of this throat and the stink of the Wastes hangs around his nose. To fall. To tumble out of the skies and watch as the blue above turned into the red below. Aerrow can’t even imagine it.

In the back of his mind, there's a soft urging. There’s a siren’s call of anger and pride. A promise of revenge and life. A call to arms.

(Morbidly, he wonders if this is how his father felt that fateful day.)

“Could we claim it?” Finn asks, his voice breaking through the fog in Aerrow’s mind. The lanky boy has his eyes still pinned on the key and there is a cruel smirk twisting around his face that Aerrow wholeheartedly agrees with.

Piper studies the map and the smirk slides onto her face too.

Something sickly and warm spreads across Aerrow’s ribs and he can feel his lips peel back from his teeth. He’s not a fan of the sky-knights. They don’t guard their territories, they don’t guard their people, they don’t wander the borders where they are needed most. But, he doesn’t have to be a sky-knight to use their equipment.

Under the cage, the cyclonian youth squad gathers once again and Finn shoves the key down his shirt while Piper curls the map up and slips in into her sleeve. The kids don’t seem to notice. They’ve got big grins, a hand on their empty sleeves where their wings will be sewn in, and Aerrow’s stomach drops.

Curled into the chicken wire, Radarr all but snarled at the boys below.

The leader looks up with split lips, a blackening eye, and a knife in his hands. “Snipe said toss’em over the edge.”


	5. People Can Make Mistakes, It Is What Happens After That Changes Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter got split into two because it was becoming a monster and it was too big. But anyway, here's the chapter!  
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and don't shoot me!  
> -Lost

There is a ringing in his ears and a rage in his blood. This can only be marginally better than blind panic. Aerrow is thirteen years old. He has spent his entire life throwing himself off cliffs and teaching himself to fly. Aerrow is thirteen and he has never known the fear that made Finn and Piper stay back even as he dances along the cliffs of the terra. 

Staring down into the Wastes, he thinks he might get it now. He thinks he might finally understand that fear.

Aerrow is going to die.

Finn's hip digs into Aerrow's back and he can see Piper kicking uselessly. Aerrow himself is clawing at the leg of the wallop that holds them all. He barely even manages to scratch the wallop’s clothing. He wants to scream. Finn is yelling something about ‘cold-blooded murder' and Piper is trying to plead for their lives, and Aerrow just keeps clawing.

Down below he can see fire.

(All he can taste is ash.)

“Are they still looking?”* The wallop's voice is soft for all that Aerrow can hear terror and anger swimming throughout the question.

Piper stops kicking and that alone is enough of a shock, that Aerrow too, falls still. They had sworn to fight to the last breath. To punch, kick, claw, and  _ bite _ . They were never going to lose another terra. They were never going to watch anyone else  _ burn _ . Aerrow cannot think of a single reason Piper would stop fighting. Cannot think why she would give up when they could at least take this bulky bastard down with them.

(The only good talon was a dead talon.)

But Piper has stopped fighting and Aerrow has long since realized that of the four of them, it is Piper who has the most sense. If she can see something he can't …

“No.” she says, her voice high and raw. “No, they're gone.”

_ They can't stand to watch us die, _ Aerrow thinks, his hands barely brushing the last bit of dirt he will ever see.  _ Cold cowards and bastards, the lot of them _ .

Then, his lungs are crushed as he lands on the ground and Finn smashes down onto his spine. Piper, for some reason, is placed on her feet. Aerrow's arm dangles off the cliff and he stares wideye at the blades of grass that separate him and the Wastes. He's never had a fear of falling before, but now…

Now Aerrow looks down into the Wastes and he wonders, a bit hysterically, if this is how his father felt before he died.

Aerrow slowly rolls away from the edge and climbs up to his feet. It would not do to fall just after he had narrowly avoided the depths. Finn, still babbling something about praises and debts, curls himself into Aerrow's side. Piper appears on his left. 

The wallop has almost seemed to shrink into himself. “I don’t like being the bad guy. I wanted to be the good guy, but…”

There are many things Aerrow could say to that, most of which would probably get his mouth washed out with soap by Miss Helen's ghost, or tossed off the terra for good measure. Still, Aerrow bites his tongue as Piper shoves an elbow into his ribs and points to the Wastes below. Aerrow gives Piper a wild look. Message received, he thinks as he shuffles away from her pointy elbows. Message received.

“You don’t have to be the bad guy.” Piper tries to reason, her voice still a bit too high to be calming. “You can help us.”

“Yeah,” Finn cuts across, a smirk crossing over his still too pale face, “we got the map to the Condor and when we come back…” there is arrogance and menace in Finn's voice and Aerrow wholeheartedly agrees with the sentiment.

The wallop’s eyes light up in awe. “The Condor!” he breathes. “You found the Condor?”

Over Piper's head, Finn and Aerrow share a quick look. Are they the only ones who didn’t know what the significance of the Condor was? Hell, were they the only ones who didn’t get the basic information apparently even a wallop could understand? That wasn’t to say wallops were  _ stupid  _ but on a whole, their culture tended to be focused on strength rather then mental exercises. That also wasn’t to mention the eating habits.

The wallop has stars in his eyes and Aerrow nearly tumbles backwards off the cliff when the wallop excitedly turns and gestures to a petal glider leaning up against the wall. It is only Finn's quick reflexes that keep Aerrow on Neverlandia and for the first time in his life, Aerrow tales a few cautionary steps  _ away  _ from the cliff.

“You can take my pedal-glider!” The wallop offers, nearly jumping up and down in a giddy display. “I tricked it out myself.”

Aerrow knows the others twist to look at the glider at the same time he gives a soft whistle of appreciation. Pedal-gliders as a rule, aren't pretty. They're basic little crafts made for short distances and used primarily on Terras with various valleys. Most of them are built for children.

Petal-gliders work similar to a copter-glider. A pole welded and braced just behind the seat lifts above the flier's head and slips into five different blades that are connected to the glider chain, on the same gear as the wheels. The sheer amount of strength and lack of weight needed to keep the pedal-glider in the air meant that typically children were the only ones light enough to even attempt to push off the ground.

For a wallop to be able to use a pedal-glider?

Aerrow doesn’t even attempt to do the math. The wallop would have to be far stronger then he weighed and be able to pedal faster than his human counterparts. In all, this pedal-glider was built to transport and Aerrow can practically feel the wind in his hair just looking at the frame.

It is Piper who gives a quiet ‘thank you' as the three of them dash to the pedal-glider. The wallop is incredibly naïve, Aerrow thinks as Piper settles into the seat and Finn and he begin to push the pedal-glider to the cliff. Radarr comes running out of nowhere and pounces on Piper’s shoulders. In the chaos of the past few minutes, somehow the sky-monkey had slipped away and managed to come back now that the danger had passed. Aerrow ruffles Radarr’s ears with a soft grin.

Turning back, Aerrow gives the wallop one last look. For all that he is comically large in his ill fitting Talon uniform, the wallop has stars in his eyes and a look of childish wonder across his face. (They’re just children, Aerrow reminds himself again. They’re all just children.)

Aerrow doesn’t know the significance of the Condor, nor does he really care. The sky-knights are traitors and blind bastards who left the boundary to die under the neglect of the Talons. It would be fitting if Aerrow could pillage a working glider from the wreckage off the sky-ship of the so-called Storm Hawks and finally do what the sky-knights had refused to do. (He will never let another terra  _ burn _ .)

They tumble off the cliff and Aerrow has a split second of sheer joy before he and Finn slam their feet onto the pedals and latch onto the mast for balance. The blades open beautifully and Piper has one hand on the handlebars and another on the map.

“It’s a few clicks! That way!” Piper shouts as she folds the map up and tucks it into her belt before jerking them down into a sharp nose dive. Working on keeping themselves airborne is difficult enough, and Aerrow can only be grateful they are heading away from the wreckage of Cliffside. There is also the fact that Piper has decided they have to descend rather than work on keeping a higher altitude.

The further they descend, the hotter the air becomes. Under them, Aerrow can see hints of the magma of the Wastes and shadows that he thinks might be the creatures he's heard skulking around in previous runs. Aerrow can only hope the Condor has not landed in one of the pools or the three of them were in for a rather grisly end on the glass-like rock formations beside the pools.

If they don’t find the Condor, only one of them will be able to leave the Wastes. They would never be able to lift the tricked out frame into the air without a sharp drop to help them out, and besides, where would the survivor go? Neverlandia was the only terra around within pedaling distance and where one youth-squad appeared, there was bound to be others.

They either find the Condor or they die trying, if they go back, they sign their death warrants.

(Aerrow figures he should probably be concerned about this, but there isn't any  _ time _ ....)

On the seat, Piper leans back and gives him a quick look before she gestures to dark rock and towering spindles directly below them. “It should be below us!” she shouts, her words almost being snatched away by the wind and the ambient shrieks of the Waste.

“Take us down then!” Aerrow shouts back as he gives a quick nod to Finn.

Thankfully, the boy seems to get it and while their descent isn't perfect, Aerrow is pleasantly surprised to find they aren't about to slam face first into the magma either. When the wheels of the pedal-glider hits the ground, their combined weight is enough to throw the three of them off balance and crashing onto the ground.

Aerrow sees the collision coming and drops off the glider into a neat roll, years of cliff jumping surging into the instinct needed to use his momentum to roll up to his feet and keep moving. Out of the corner of his eye, Aerrow can see Finn drop gracelessly. The blond had never seemed to learn the balance and blind faith necessary to jump recklessly and come out unscathed. Still, Finn immediately sticks one hand up into the air with a thumbs up, and Aerrow isn't too concerned. If Finn can move to do that much, then he was fine.

Out of the three of them, it is Piper who makes him slide to a stop. For some sky forsaken reason, it seemed she had  _ stayed on the glider. _ With Finn and Aerrow falling off to the sides and the blades retracting, the center of balance changed between one bump and the next. It should not have been amusing to see Piper shriek and all but pinwheel over the handlebars. Nor should it have been amusing to see her curl up into a ball midair and bounce like a discarded toy across the barren rock of the Wastes.

Radarr, the poor thing, had been flung off when she had tilted over the handlebars. He bounces across the Wastes and gives a short yelp when he rolled to a stop at Aerrow’s feet. Aerrow cannot find it in himself to comment when the poor creature scrambles up onto his shoulder and hisses at the pedal-glider.

“By the skies,” Aerrow chokes when Piper finally skids to a stop, “why didn’t you just…”

A few meters from his feet, Piper groans into the ground. “Finish that thought,” she warns as she drags herself up, “and I will make you hurt.”

Aerrow forces himself to stifle his laughter and instead chokes out a quick apology. Behind him, Finn scrambles up from where he had face planted, and Aerrow pretends not to see him frantically running his hands over his hair and attempting to straighten out the mess. Privately, Aerrow has to wonder who the boy thinks he is going to impress? The Waste ghosts?

Rolling his eyes, Arrow beckons Finn over and the two boys mosey towards Piper with minimal aches and pains. Surprisingly, after her tumble, Piper looks no worse for wear, if not a bit rumpled. But by this point, Aerrow was willing to bet they all looked like the border rats they truly were; grubby, grimey, and far too desperate.

Piper pulled the map from her pocket. “Looks like the Condor should just be around that ridge.” She mused, her eyes flicking between the map and the Wastes around them.

Aerrow shot Finn a bemused look. To be completely honest, Aerrow had never been that good with maps, instead he preferred to simply wander around until he had a general idea of which way he was going. North was always dead center between the sunrise and the sunset. East was where the sun rose and West was where the sun set. South was opposite to North, and if he ever had to find his way by the stars, he always looked for True North at the point of the sky-god’s staff and started walking.

As far as Aerrow was concerned, Piper could keep her maps, they were never truly accurate about the twists of the Wastes anyway.

Aerrow threw a hand out towards the path Piper had pointed out, thankful there were no magma pits around. “Lead on!”

Piper oh so maturely stuck her tongue out at him. “I should have shoved you off the glider when I had the chance.” she grumbled with a small grin.

Finn rolled his eyes as he walked by, both hands linked behind his head. “Oh come on, Pipes! If you had gotten rid of him, it would just be you and me!”

“I should have thrown  _ you  _ off the glider!” She threw back over her shoulder.

“She was talking about you. RIght?” FInn whispered with a sharp look of fear. “She was talking about you?”

Aerrow goes to shoot something back at the other boy when the words suddenly shrivel up on the tip of his tongue. Finn is shaking. He doesn’t know why he hadn't noticed before, but Finn is shaking. He's got those shifting eyes and flushed cheeks, all wrapped up in twitching limbs and a too cocky smile. (Aerrow still sees a little boy curled up on a crate with a wicked right hook and a too loud voice.)

“Yeah,” Aerroe manages to choke out when the silence drags a bit too long, “yeah. She was talking to me.”

Aerrow doesn’t know what to do. His skin itches where it seems stretched too thin over his bones and he knows his smile is more of a grimace than an expression of mirth. (There is a cyclonian youth squad behind them and a wrecked glider frame on the ground. There's no way out.)

(There's no way out.)

He falls into step beside Piper, and now that he's looking, he sees the way her left hand hovers over her heart, in a mockery of how she used to tie up the limb on cold nights in a sling. (She never said what had happened but Aerrow always knew it had something to do with the  _ accident.  _ It had something to do with her  _ parents. _ ) He can see how her right leg hitches on the upswing and her left knee buckled slightly under her weight.

His fingers twitch and something wraps around his lungs and squeezes. He can't fix this. He can't make the aches go away. He can't  _ fix them _ . He needs time, food, and above all else, safety. He needs them to be  _ safe. _

On his shoulder, Radaar chitters something and all but scrambles down to the ground to bound off ahead of them. The little sky-monkey scampers across the ground as if the light heat simmering up from the rock is nothing more than cool green grass. Aerrow should not be instantly jealous of this apparent talent. Pausing a few steps ahead, Radaar turns, lifts one paw up from the ground, and gestures for the humans to ‘hurry up’.

By the storms, even the sky-monkey was feeling the pressure of the map.

(Sky-gods, there is  _ never enough time. _ )

Piper folds the map back up and tucks it away into her pocket once more. “It should be right around this bend.”

There's something in the way she says it, a small waver in her tone and a spark of what Aerrow thinks might be  _ fear  _ in her eyes. (He sees Piper's fear and he always thinks about too long skirts and clinking crystals.) He sees her fear and Aerrow is nothing if not selfish. He pushes past her with a gesture to the overhang and proceeds to walk through the Wastes as if the heat curling down his back and sinking claws into his skin was nothing more than a cool breeze. If they don’t get to the Condor, there are worse ways then to die at the maw of a Waste Beast.

It doesn’t take long to round the corner and for a split second, Aerrow can only be grateful that the other two are behind him. In all honesty, the situation hasn't quite sunk in. Aerrow had had a father. Aerrow had a legacy. Aerrow had a ship. (At the moment, that seemed like the more important detail.)

But...

There, sitting on the barren rock of the Wastes, was the Condor. Aerrow, for all that he sang to the skies and stared up at stars, had never really bothered to look up any information about ships. He preferred gliders anyway. But the Condor…

Aerrow knew broken ships. He knew what wreckage and carnage looked like. He had spent the past year picking through debris and stepping over the corpses of his people. He knew what a downed ship looked like and this? This ship looked nothing like the haulers from Cliffside.

She was in perfect condition.

(Something wasn’t right.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Stork


	6. Compassion is kinder then force

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another chapter!  
> As you can see, I have added a chapter cap and this fic is almost done. I hope you are all enjoying the wild ride.  
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

Aerrow shifts in unease. The Condor, she’s just sitting there, completely untouched and ripe for the pickings. His fingers itch at the thought of the salvage, of the gear they could claim. But a larger part of him, the part that has kept Piper and Finn close and  _ safe  _ keeps him back. He’s seen wrecks before. He knows what years of laying in the Wastes will do to a hull. The Condor doesn’t look anything like what the ships from Cliffside did when they crumpled into the Wastes..

She practically looks brand new.

Piper’s hand curled around his elbow. “The Condor,” she breathed, her eyes lighting up with a spark Aerrow hadn't seen in months, “one of the fastest ships on record and one of the strongest hulls ever made for her class size.”

“How do you even know all of that?” Finn complained as he absently swung Radarr up onto his shoulder. “There's no way you could know any of that.”

Piper gave him an irritated scowl and swung around. “I,” she shouted, one hand raised in a violent swipe, “unlike some people…”

There was a soft  _ click. _

_ (A long skirt tangled around crystals _ …)

_ (A braid caught in the hand of a Talon…) _

_ (Two energy crystals swinging together…) _

The ground heaved.

“Piper!” Aerrow screamed, already throwing himself forward.

In the corner of his eye, something flashed. He could see a metal bar swinging through the air. Finn screamed something, hand outstretched as if to haul Aerrow back. His eyes are wide and so, so,  _ blue.  _ On his shoulder, Radarr  _ screams,  _ his fur puffing up in uneven spikes.

(There was never enough time.)

Aerrow slammed into Piper, his arms wrapping around her and  _ twisting  _ until he knew that when they landed, the worst of the trap was going to land on him.

There is never enough…

“What are you doing?!”

The screech echoes through the Wastes and breaks through the fear licking at Aerrow's spine. Piper's hands have clawed into his shoulder blades, and Aerrow can taste blood and death on his tongue. At least, he thinks a bit desperately, he doesn’t taste ash.

He lifts his head up from the ground and for a split second, wonders if the trap had a mind crystal installed somewhere. Aerrow can identify most of the sentient and civilized species of Atmos. Miss Helen had not been lax in that part of his education, but Aerrow would have been willing to swear blind that this species had been extinct since The Fall.

The merbs had died out years ago.

Piper shoves him off her and Aerrow scrambles away with an apology, even as he gestures towards the furious figure now standing at the base of the Condor's docking hatch. Every squadron ran with their own species. There were no exceptions. So, Aerrow knows this merb could not have been from the original crew of the Condor. (Aerrow was human, after all.)

Green skinned, three toed, and four fingered, Merbs were the only inhabitants of the terra Merbia. Before the Fall, they had been closed off species, almost as bad as the Wallops. After The Fall, they had apparently all but disappeared. (Aerrow purposefully does not think about the rumours of the Cyclonian slave trade. He does not think of the borders and the ever disappearing terras. He does not think of them at all.)

“What are you doing?” the Merb shrieked again as he threw his hands in the air and gestured to the metal pole suspended halfway between the overhang and the ground. “That trap was meant for Talons! Not wimps like you! Months of work! Months! Wasted because three little  _ humans  _ couldn’t find their way out of a simple bash'em pole.”

Aerrow’s heart was pounding in his ears and the rush of his blood sang in his throat. He didn’t know what a bash’em pole was, but from the quick glance he had gotten earlier, he was willing to bet the name was pretty accurate. The fact he didn’t have a broken spine and skull was most likely thanks to the fact the Merb had been vigilant enough to put in a safety for the trap.

“No. No. No!” The Merb shouted, stringy black hair whipping about as he stalked down the hatch. “Don’t step there. Do you want to be burned into a tiny little crisp at 3200 degrees? It is excruciating, let me tell you. First goes the skin which smells like burning meat, then the muscle and fat. If you are lucky, the nerves will be too damaged to send any pain to your brain but if the blast lands the wrong way, well… pain will be the least of your worries.”

Aerrow turned at Finn’s quiet squeak. The other boy had one foot poised in the air and both arms held out for balance. Under his foot, was a thin wire spanning across the gap between two of the spires reaching up from the Waste.

How he hadn’t triggered it, Aerrow didn’t know.

Aerrow caught Finn's eye and the stark terror bleeding across his expression is like a punch to the gut. He could have lost him.  _ Aerrow could have lost Finn _ . He had tried to save Piper. He had tried to do the right thing. But he had almost lost Finn.

He can't bury Finn. He can't.

(He closes his eyes and Miss Helen's damn smile cuts another scar into his heart.)

“Finn, take a step back. Slowly.” Aerrow finally hissed, his eyes flicking between Finn's terror filled face and the Merb's frustrated one.

(In another life, it might have been funny the way Radarr is still on Finn's shoulder, his fur fluffed up to three times his typical size. But in this world, where Aerrow had nearly lost everything in one fell swoop, Radarr's terror hardly even registers.)

It takes effort not to jump to his feet and grab the Merb by the collar. Threatening the being with the only ticket out of here, is not a good idea on a good day. And today? Today is not a good day.

Aerrow's hands curl into the heated rock of the Wastes and the burn pulls the haze from his eyes. This situation cant be fixed with a few punches and threats. He can’t intimidate the merb, can't afford to antagonize him. Force might get them out of the field of traps and up to the skies, but it does not ensure their continued survival and the liberation of Neverlandia. Aerrow has to be careful.

“Fine.” The merb sighs, his long spindly fingers flexing over what looks to be a short black box with several crystals and switches embedded in the frame. “You all might as well come in. The Talons won’t hold off forever.”

He hits a button.

“By the skies.” Piper breaths, her eyes wide as she drags herself up to her feet, her arms crossed over her chest. For all that she had been willing to jump headlong into the Condor, she doesn’t seem too willing to move now.

Aerrow doesn’t blame her.

The entire ground around the Condor heaves and shudders, bucking against metal nets and criss-crossing poles. The hiss of hydraulics has Aerrow scrambling forward to the only thing that hasn’t moved. The Condor. He grabs Piper by the wrist and when Finn finally stumbles close enough, Aerrow grabs him too.

Aerrow can only assume that the merb has hit a reset switch on his traps. Even if he didn’t, Aerrow can only admit that the merb has them right where he wants them. In the belly of the beast with no plan, no escape, and no ideas.

The hatch closes behind them and it is not comforting to note that the hiss of the lock sounds so much like a sealing of his tomb. 

“So, how close are the Talons?” The merb says, twitching as he turns and stares at the three of them out of the corner of his eyes. “Come on. Come on. Speak up! I would like to be able to know how soon my imminent death is!”

There isn't a lot Aerrow can think to say to that. His hands and knees are scraped and bloody and he thinks he may have jarred something in his shoulder. Piper still has her arms crossed, her weight on one foot, and unless the lighting is worse than Aerrow thought, he can see the beginning of a wicked bruise on her cheek. Ironically, Finn seems to be the least roughed up but he is just as covered in dirt as Aerrow and Piper.

Part of him wants to say that the Talons had already come, thank you very much. Another part of him wants to laugh and laugh and laugh and…

In the end, he shares a long glance with Piper, looks over to Finn, rolls a few memories around in the back of his head, and slowly lowers himself to the ground. Aerrow had grown up in Cliffhouse. He had seen children come and go. He had dragged Finn to the cliffs and scolded Piper out of her books. Miss Helen might not have taught him to read his letters, but Aerrow could read  _ people. _

The merb stilled, the glint in his eye fading as he fidgeted around, eventually turning and regarding Aerrow out of his other eye. The whole scene was a bit like Mary-Lou, the little girl with her doll and big blond curls. She couldn’t stand touch and hated loud noises. For the first three months, she had simply stared, constantly hiding behind walls and doors until she had felt brave enough to wander out on her own.

The merb obviously wasn’t a little girl and he was quite a bit older, but Aerrow figured the concept was the same.

“There are no Talons coming.” Aerrow said, careful to keep his tone even and not too soft. It wouldn't do to appear condescending. He forces himself to remain loose limbed, wrists draped over his knees and his back a bit slouched . His gaze is stuck somewhere just to the left of the Merb's head and he has the feeling catching his gaze will spook him more than help his case of sincerity. Distantly, he registers Finn and Piper following him to the ground, but Aerrow is more focused on the merb in front of them. He hasn’t stopped twitching. He hasn’t stopped moving at all. “How long have you been down here?” he tries to keep the question light.

(He sees a dozen ships falling into the Wastes and his heart  _ shatters.  _ He's alone. Miss Helen, Finn, Piper. The other children. They were on those ships. They were on those ships.  _ He's alone. _ )

(Above his head a Talon  _ laughs. _ )

The merb's hair falls in front of his face and his green skin pales as he stretches his fingers into twisted shapes. “Since Merbia fell.” His head twitches to the side as if he were dodging a blow. “I  _ told  _ them something  _ bad  _ was going to happen.  _ I told them. _ ”

Aerrow resists the urge to look over to Piper for clarification. She kept her ears to the ground and her eyes to the sky. If there was anyone who could string a timeline together for half the events across Atmos, it would be Piper. Provided, of course, that you supplied her with a map, paper, and a ton of ink.

But, he doesn’t want to draw attention to Piper or Finn, nor does he want the merb to turn on him for any unexpected movement. Some of the kids that came to Cliffhouse were more animal than child. Aerrow had gotten his fair share of teeth marks and scratches. Miss Helen had always called the interactions with those children, ‘creature rules'. And, if Aerrow had been asked to help out, one mention of creature rules had him lowering his gaze, tucking in his chin, and keeping his hada to himself, unless he was hit first. Then it was a free for all.

On a side note though, at least they knew the merb didn’t have a claim to the salvage. Not through blood at least.

“It's been a while then.” Aerrow commented, careful not to be too specific.

The merb shuffled, his hands flitting across several different panels and tools scattered around the docking room. “About eight years, give or take six months.” He agreed, sounding almost a bit eager as he turned back towards them. “I had told them, you know. That there were talons. No one believed me. We were doomed from the start.”

Piper's hand tangled into Aerrow's shirt and a slight tug on his waistband told him Finn had slipped a bit closer as well. He couldn’t blame them. Eight years. Eight whole years. Alone. In the Wastes. It was a miracle the merb was willing to talk at all, let alone that he was able to have a civil conversation.

“I fled down the passages into the Wastes. I used to be an apprentice to a sky ship Engineer, you know, youngest on merb. But, when the Cyclonian border started to expand, I got put on the trapping division. My Captain didn’t think I was old enough to be able to tell a Cyclonian corpse from a mercian one. Told me I was hysterical. Then, well…” the merb trailed off, his story falling to pieces with a wild laugh. “A Hellfire Bomb burns in swirls, did you know that?”

There is ash on his tongue and burns on his hands. Hellfire. Hellfire crystal bombs. By the sky god, how many did the cyclonians have?

Aerrow sits on the floor in the locking hatch of the Condor and stares at nothing. His teeth are clenched, his hands are twisted together, and the only heat bringing warmth to his frozen blood are the hands Piper and Finn have curled tighter into his shirt and belt. He doesn’t know if they are looking for comfort or offering it, but he is thankful all the same.

“I've been down here eight years,” the merb says, almost as if now that he's started talking, he's not sure how to stop, “and I found this place pretty quickly. Cleaned it up. Made it better.” He taps one of the compulsively clean walls, the grey polished to the point of shining. “The only thing I couldn’t do…”

Here the merb trails off, his eyes gaining what Aerrow thinks might be a manic gleam. It's enough to make Aerrow tense.

The merb surges forward, hand curling into Aerrow's sleeve and dragging him up. The merb must have had a worrying amount of strength under his skin or he would never have been able to make Aerrow budge, not with Piper and Finn still holding onto him. Either way, the four of them go stumbling down the hall and up to the bridge. They're moving too fast for Aerrow to properly take everything in, but it’s impossible to miss the scorch marks on the walls or the tears in the floor. The merb might have been able to buff them out to a point, but Aerrow can identify crystal damage as well as any other Atmosian. Border Rat or not.

“Was leave!” The Merb finished with an angry shout.

Aerrow finds himself released and he barely manages to fumble his way to leaning against the navigation table in the bridge before he collapses into a seat. The ash in his mouth has coated his tongue and clogged his throat.

The whole floor of the bridge is  _ black.  _ Maybe it’s because Aerrow spent his formative years on Cliffside. Maybe it’s because he can clearly remember the mines and the warnings about unstable crystal shipments. Maybe it’s because he shares a home with Piper and no one can live with the girl without learning something about crystal signatures.

In the end, it doesn’t matter.

The floor isn't covered in soot.

Piper sticks a knuckle in her mouth and turns her eyes to the scorched table. From the sudden paling of her cheeks, the change in scenery hasn't helped. Finn, always one step behind her, has his hand on her shoulder and his eyes wide open.

Aerrow can't move from the table. Cant bother to listen to hear what the merb was saying.

Piper had waxed poetry about the sky-knights. She had said that the only way a sky-knight and their crew would stay down, was if they were dead. (The hope that someone would be able to look at the key and tell him  _ welcome home  _ shrivels up and dies before he can even properly identify the fantasy.)

Life leech crystals were difficult to produce, but it wasn’t because the crystals were rare. No, life leech crystals were rare because no mine ever kept any that were found. Standard mine protocol. No matter the terra. Life leech crystals were insidious. Like many leech crystals, they started slow. At first, you would have a slight headache, followed by irritability. Then, there would be the trouble sleeping and the temper. Then came the general nausea followed quickly by confusion, bloodied nose, and hopefully, a loss of consciousness and a swift death.

If one wasn’t lucky, well, no one had ever seen the effects and lived to tell the tale, but the bodies typically told a story of their own.

No one knew how Life Leech crystals worked. Smaller pieces worked slower and larger pieces were known to kill immediately. The catch was, they only worked around two-legged sentient and civilized life. While in the mines, covered by stone, life leech Crystal’s could remain untouched and unbothered for years. The trouble only began when life leeches were brought up to the surface and placed under direct light.

Like all Crystal’s, life leeches had a distinct signature. Hellfire bombs always spiraled. Blizzard Crystal’s always bloomed up and out. Life leeches turned an area  _ black. _

Aerrow, Finn, and Piper share one long look. 

(By the Skies, how many people had been on the ship when it had gone down? How many people had sat on this bridge, fingers clawing at their throats as they tried to breathe, even as the Condor slipped ever down through the skies?)

Arrow looks down at his hands.

(Had his father even given thought to how low the Talons would sink? Had he seen this?)

It is Finn who takes the plunge. The boy steps forward with all the bravado that Aerrow cannot seem to summon and pulls the key out of his shirt. How the other boy had managed to keep track of it and not lose it in the Wastes, is a miracle onto itself.

Finn holds up the key with a smirk that is becoming ever present on his face. “You looking for this, merb?”

The merb practically salivates over the key, slinking over to loom over Finn and to stare directly at the shard of crystal that will resonate perfectly with the start-up engine and conductors. “Gimme.”

“No.” Piper near snarls, her eyes still stuck on the black floor. “It’s Aerrow’s ship by sky-law.”

Aerrow is the child of no one. (Aerrow is the child of  _ someone _ .) He has ghosts in his blood and the scars of broken promises and ash in his bones. He is going to save his home. (He will not lose another.) Aerrow cannot kick someone else out of their safe haven.

Aerrow looks at the merb.

The merb gives him a twitchy look, all side-eyed glances and fluttering hands. “Stork,” the merb offers with a quick glance to the key. “The name is Stork.”

Aerrow finds himself giving a quick nod. “Alright.” There is a weight on his shoulders and shackles on his feet. He grabs the key from Finn and tries not to feel like he is giving away the only thing in the world that is  _ his. _ “Wanna go shoot some Cyclonians?”

Maybe it is because of the leech crystal marks under their feet. Maybe it is because Merbia fell and no one bothered to check for survivors. Maybe it is because Aerrow offers a chance at revenge.

Stork gives him a wicked grin. “There’s something you’re gonna want to see.”

Stork doesn’t reach for the key again, and that is enough to make Aerrow follow the merb without question. Stork might have been alone for skies knew how long, but he was certainly desperate to leave. If the merb was willing to let go of the key for any reason, Aerrow was willing to bet it would be compelling.

Stork leads them to the air hanger leading directly to the deck of the Condor. “I didn’t just fix up the ship,” he says as he scuttles into the hanger, “I found these.”

There are four gliders locked down in the hanger. There is one heli-glider, two standard four-winged gliders that have been tricked out beyond anything Aerrow could even fathom, and one split-glider.

Aerrow's jaw just about hits the ground.

“And these? These I never touched. Might have given me mind worm crawlers, ya know?” Stork bars his teeth as he points to the wall with a raspy chuckle. “You might like them though, you humans.”

Aerrow sees the crossbow on the wall first. Honestly, he's not even surprised by this point. He's been looking for a crossbow for so long that it's second nature to walk up and check over the specs. He's seen a few during his runs. He's even contemplated bringing one back before, but when he struggled with the weight of it, Aerrow doubted Finn wouldn’t be able to make the damn thing budge.

But this one?

Aerrow gingerly takes the crossbow down from the wall and absently flips it over in his hands. Lightweight but solid. This one isn't liable to warp under the strain or melt under the heat of a crystal. He doesn’t know much about what makes a good crossbow but he figures if a few years of storage hasn’t wrecked it, then the weapon can survive Finn. He tosses the crossbow to Finn and tilts his head to the rack of bolts in the corner. “Stock up.”

The whoop of delight Finn let’s out tells Aerrow more than the boy's muttered rant as he paws through the bolts.

Next, Aerrow grabs the collapsible staff. This one he can actually identify. Piper had shoved enough books in his face, her expression made of pure delight for Aerrow not to be able to pick out a mage staff on sight. He can't name all the gauges or explain what everything does, but he supposes that's what he has Piper for. Tossing it towards her is an exercise in remaining stoick. Piper had wanted one for ages and her squeal of delight makes him want to grin.

The twirl she gives the staff and the way she pivots makes Aerrow suddenly glad she hadn’t had one of those mage sticks back when they were at Cliffhouse. Piper looks down at her staff and Aerrow can hardly breathe. Finn can explain his familiarity with the crossbow. He can point to his tentative apprenticeship with the master archers and his attempt at making a bow. Piper has no such excuse.

There is one rule of Cliffhouse that every child follows without fail. Never ask what happened before. (Aerrow looks at Piper and pretends not to wonder if the girl was trained by her parents.)

There are two things left on the wall of the hanger. In another world, Aerrow might have been handed these crystal daggers by his father. In this world, his hands itch as he reaches out for the hilts and he unbuckles the safety tie downs under the careful eye of a merb.

Aerrow holds the daggers lax at his sides and for a moment, his eyes slip closed. Between his shoulder blades, electrified claws draw patterns into his skin and wrap callused fingers over his shoulders. Storms swirl about his stomach and lay waste to his ribs. His heart beats a steady tattoo and for the first time in ages, Aerrow doesn’t taste ash on his tongue.

He tastes lightening.

Aerrow opens his eyes.

It’s time to take on some Talons.

Across from him, Stork gives a slow, sly, nod. The merb hasn’t stopped twitching and circling. Aerrow can't bring himself to care. He needs a pilot. (Later, Aerrow will wonder what, exactly, he had been thinking. He threw the three of them off a cliff, into the Wastes, without even wondering how they were going to fly the Condor. What had he expected to happen?)

Aerrow flicks the sides of the daggers, collapsing the crystals back into the hilts, before stashing them away on his belt. He'll have to find a better solution, but for now, this will do.

Aerrow holds up the key. “You still want to go shoot some Talons?”

That slow twitchy grin pops up from under stringy black hair and narrowed eyes. “My pleasure.” Stork practically purrs, although, par per course, he also adds in an off the cuff “but only until something better comes along.”

(Aerrow doesn't doubt ‘something better' means a direct inheritance of the Condor, but he isn't too concerned. He's only doing this to save Neverlandia.)

Stork takes the key. Aerrow swings up onto his glider, grinning when Radarr joins him in the co-pilot seat. It’s time to save a terra.

(Electricity purrs through his veins.)

…***…

In the end, they get lucky.

The Cyclonians leave after a thrashing. Aerrow's name is certainly going to be on a wanted poster after this. And the wallop has practically begged to be part of the ‘crew'.  Piper has already claimed a bedroom and a ‘lab'. Finn had jumped at the chance for a proper bunk and all but locked himself into another room. The wallop, (Aerrow should probably start calling Junko by name) takes a space just off the hanger, and Stork hisses a tense ‘mine' at the room just off the bridge.

Aerrow finds himself staring at the last quarters on the ship. Piper had said the Condor had been old, fourteen years ago, but this room certainly proves it. Stork had mentioned something about how he stripped the Condor down, when they had docked on Neverlandia. He had admitted that most of the personal items had been thrown away or salvaged in a patch job. But this room, this room looks like a blend of three different renovations, a crystal explosion, and a dash of ‘diy' for good measure.

It is habit to grab a stray bolt and begin to scratch an arrow into the side of ‘his' bunk. Just as it is a habit to run a hand along the frame of the door to check for other names. (Aerrow might have been able to read and write now, but he will never forget his first language. He will never forget arrows, fins, and pipes.)

Aerrow's bunk, His fist bunk all to himself, has a symbol carved into the doorframe. Aerrow's hands still and he gently traces one finger over the deep cuts. He's seen this before, he thinks as he tilts his head. Piper had told him the name of this one, had been scandalized that none of them had ever played cards.

Piper had called it a spade.

Aerrow raises an eyebrow at the name in the door. Spade. Huh. Considering Aerrow hadn't even known the name of the Condor before today, he shouldn’t be too surprised that he doesn’t know the name of any other crew member aside from Ace and Lightning Strike.

He sits down on the bunk.

They had gotten lucky. Snipe had disappeared too quickly and without too much of a fight. If the man had brought a squad along with him, Aerrow and the others wouldn’t have made it out.

They got lucky.

Aerrow puts his head in his hands.

Piper and Finn had been so astonished that Aerrow would want them on his crew and that hurt. There were claws wrapped around his heart and twisting nails into his veins. How could Piper and Finn not know how much he wanted them by his side? How could they not know?

(Piper’s skirts twisted around her knees and the crystals clinked.)

(Finn sat on Aerrow's legs and held up a fist. His eyes were so red.)

(Piper’s foot caught in a trip wire and Finn’s hand was outstretched but too far away.)

They were his. His crew.

Aerrow bites down on his knuckles. He doesn’t want to admit it, that Neverlandia is too small. He doesn’t want to admit that now that he has the taste of the skies on his tongue and the thrill in his veins, that even thinking about going back to the ground, makes him nauseous. 

The Storm Hawks. Piper thought he could remake the Storm Hawks. (And skies, didn’t that hurt? To be a Storm Hawk. To never have a home.) Piper and FInn thought that he could be a sky-knight, he could be one of the people who maintained control of the skies. 

(Piper wanted a Storm Hawk.)

There is the sharp pain of broken skin on his knuckles and Aerrow tastes the beginning of blood on his tongue. What use is a sky-knight? What use are the idiots who never patrolled the border and left rats like him to die on the outskirts?

What is the use of a sky-knight?

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter was very much just trying to get them to just before the actual show started so, yes, its a bit rushed. Oh well. Some of it might be touched upon later in the fic.  
> Any questions or comments, leave in the comments below.


End file.
